


Nothing Lasts Forever

by nickelsandcoats



Series: Nothing Lasts Forever [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096">this prompt</a> at <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/"><b>sherlockbbc_fic</b></a>:<i> Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?</i></p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

**Nothing Lasts Forever**

 **i.** _I love you like crazy. If anything ever happened to you, I wouldn’t know what to do._

  
Nothing in Sherlock’s life could have prepared him for this moment.

John is gone.

The world is colder, quieter, more fragile than before.

He calls Lestrade in a daze, still clutching John’s body to his chest. He doesn’t notice the blood soaking into his coat, staining his fingers.

Things happen in slow motion.

Lestrade runs up behind him—“Jesus, no. Oh, God, Sherlock, I’m sorry.” Warm hand on his shoulder.

Another voice—“Let me see him, sir.” A hand covered in blue latex reaches down and gently tries to take John away. Sherlock frowns and pulls John in tighter.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade’s voice is gentle, too quiet. “You need to let him go, now.”

The world should not be holding its breath, waiting to shatter. The world should be bright and loud; John should be opening his eyes and teasing Sherlock about falling for his joke.

John is cold and quiet. There is snow on his eyelashes and in his hair. There is blood on his chest. There is nothing, now.

Sherlock took a deep breath and surrendered John to the technician who had tried to take him before.  
After John left his arms, Sherlock stood, and ignoring Lestrade’s “Sherlock!” and Donovan’s look of pity, strode off down the alley.

He would not fall apart. He would not would not would not would not John John John is gone never see him again never hear him laugh again never feel him taste him kiss him love him John John John John John John why why why why him why not me I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t. Do. This. Alone. not anymore oh John John John.

He was so caught in his inner monologue that he nearly ran into Mycroft at the end of the alley. Unforgivable.

Mycroft only held the car door open for him. Sherlock, still numb, climbed in, Mycroft following after him and closing the door with a quiet click. Mycroft sat next to him and did something he had not done since Sherlock was nine years old. He reached over to his little brother and pulled him into his chest, holding Sherlock as he finally let go and wailed in his grief.

*

Mycroft would not take him to Baker Street that night. “Stay here, just for tonight,” he had said when he had helped Sherlock from the car and in the front door of his own house. What he didn’t say was “so that I can keep an eye on you in case you try to do something unthinkable,” but Sherlock could hear his brother’s unspoken thought.

 _Perhaps he is right to worry,_ Sherlock thought as he sat in one of Mycroft’s armchairs and stared into the fire. _If I had gone home, it would’ve been easy to follow him. His gun, or a knife, or some pills._ He blinked for the first time in what felt like an hour. _But that’s not what he would’ve wanted._

 _He didn’t know it would hurt this much, though. I didn’t think anything could hurt this much. Is this what love feels like? What loss feels like? It’s a wonder anyone risks it all. But he said it was enough, and if he believed it, then maybe I can too. Someday._

*

 _I’m sorry I wasn’t there sooner, John, but I’ll be there as soon as I can._

Sherlock took a deep breath; beside him, the monitors beeped.

 _Not long now, love. Soon._

 _Soon._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**ii.** _There’s magic in science, in every plastic bottle of tranquilizers, there’s an apple for my sleeping beauty._

  
Sherlock was torn between leaving Mycroft’s house, hunting down Gerald Winston, and rending the man limb from limb to avenge John’s death and being paralysed with grief, barely able to think, to breathe. _So this is what life without John is like,_ he thought. _It’s cold and grey and even the beating of my heart hurts._

Mycroft’s even tread behind him made his shoulder stiffen reflexively. “Did you sleep at all?” Mycroft asked.

Sherlock flicked his gaze to the window. Dawn was breaking. How long had he been sitting here while the bastard who dared to take his John away was still breathing?

 _How do you stand it?_ he wanted to ask Mycroft. _How do you go on living day after day when the one person who made being brilliant, who made living, worthwhile is gone?_

Mycroft came around the chair to face him. “Gerald Winston is in custody.”

Sherlock’s head whipped up and his eyes gleamed. “Where?”

“We are....interrogating him now.”

“I want to see him.”

“Later.”

“Now.”

“Later, Sherlock. For now, you need to bathe, eat, and sleep. You can use the guest room.”

Sherlock glowered at him.

“Sherlock, please.”

He got up and stalked upstairs. Alone again, he stripped off his clothes (still covered in John’s blood—don’t think about it don’t don’t don’t) and stood under the shower until the water ran cold. He let himself cry under the harsh spray until he couldn’t stand the cold water any longer and got out. When he had toweled off, he walked back into the guestroom and saw that someone had replaced his bloodstained clothes with fresh ones. Numbly, he pulled them on, fingers fumbling with the buttons before crawling onto the bed and clutching a pillow to his chest. He stared at the ceiling and didn’t notice that he had drifted off to sleep until Mycroft came in to wake him.

“I presume that you would like to speak with Gerald Winston?”

“Speak is not the word I would use, no.”

Mycroft’s grin was all teeth. “Good. The car’s waiting.”

*

John Watson died at 11.36 PM on Wednesday, February 18, 2011.

Sherlock Holmes killed Gerald Winston, the man who murdered his lover, at 3.15 PM on Thursday, February 19, 2011.

John Watson was buried on Saturday, February 21. It was a sunny day.

*

Sherlock had not been back to Baker Street since John died. Mycroft finally had the car drop him off at 221B after John’s funeral, despite Mycroft’s insistence that Sherlock stay at Mycroft’s house for a few more days. He relented, and Sherlock went back home.

He stood for a long moment in front of their flat’s door, key in one hand while the other rested on the door’s worn wood. Finally, he took a deep breath and unlocked the door, stepped inside, and nearly gave in to tears again. He had only cried a few tears at the funeral as John was lowered into the ground and he tossed the first handful of dirt on the coffin. Now, being back home nearly brought him to his knees. Everything around him said _John_ —John’s teacup sitting on the counter, his laptop still open on the coffee table, his gloves tossed on his armchair. He stumbled up the stairs to their room, John’s room, and collapsed on the bed, burying his face in John’s pillow and breathing in his scent. _I don’t know if I can do this. I can’t stand it—this gnawing ache. Where are you, John? I need you. I need you._

Sherlock stayed in their bed for three days. He refused to answer calls or texts, barely ate, ignored Mrs. Hudson when she came up on the second day to check on him. At the end of the third day, he finally dragged himself from their bed and showered. Moran was still out there and needed to be caught. After that, perhaps, he could follow John. But not while there was work left to do.

He rummaged in John’s bureau for a clean pair of socks, forcing himself to swallow past the lump in his throat John’s socks caused, when he found the little red box.

All the air left him in a great whoosh as he pulled the box out of the drawer and opened it with shaking fingers. Two rings. _Oh, John._ He carefully pulled the smaller of the rings out and held it up to the dim evening light, turning it this way and that.

“Sherlock?” It was Lestrade, his tread light on the steps.

“Sherlock?”

“Here.”

Lestrade stood in the bedroom doorway. His eyes widened as he caught sight of the box in Sherlock’s hand, the ring glinting in the light. “Sherlock, Christ, I’m sorry.”

Sherlock flicked him a wan smile as he slid his ring on his finger. He turned and dug around in a small box on top of the bureau until he found a silver chain and threaded John’s ring onto it. He clasped the chain about his neck and felt the reassuring weight of the ring settle against his chest. Only then did he turn to Lestrade. “What is it?”

“We were worried about you—you haven’t answered our calls or texts. We’ve got something—a murder. Odd one, this. It looks like some of the ones you said Moriarty orchestrated. Will you come?”

“I’ll be right behind. Where?”

“Brixton. Lauriston Gardens.”

“Where it all began,” Sherlock murmured.

Lestrade looked at him, puzzled.

“Nothing. Shall we?”

Thus followed the longest months of Sherlock’s life. Moran proved to be as elusive as Moriarty. But, Moran succeeded where Moriarty didn’t—he managed to kill the great Sherlock Holmes.

*

“How is he?” Mycroft asked.

The nurse gave him a sad smile. “I’m afraid he’s not doing well at all, sir. The doctor can tell you more. He’ll be around to see you in a few minutes.”

Mycroft nodded and walked into Sherlock’s hospital room and sat in the chair next to his bed. He hesitated, and then said, “You always were one for theatrics, Sherlock. But somehow, I don’t think this is one of those times. I hope that whatever you’re dreaming of, that you’re happy.” He stopped and listened to the quiet whoosh of the ventilator, the soft beeps of the monitors. Sherlock had been comatose for nine days now, and he was slipping farther away each day. It wouldn’t be long now. A few more days, at most.

“All I ever wanted was to keep you happy. I hope you know that.”

Mycroft reached out and held his brother’s cool, slack hand. Sherlock’s ring was loose on his finger. At Mycroft’s insistence, the staff had left Sherlock’s necklace alone—the ring John was meant to have worn was a small outline under the hospital gown. They shared the silence, each man trapped in his own thoughts.

*

Sherlock Holmes dreams of this:

He was five, Mycroft nearly thirteen. They were at the pond on the estate’s grounds because Sherlock wanted to collect a frog to study its movement as it jumped. Mycroft was there to make sure he didn’t drown.

“Mycroft?”

“Hmmm?” His older brother didn’t look up from the physics textbook he had brought down to the pond. He was leaning against a tree about 15 yards from the pond and keeping a loose eye on Sherlock. Sherlock hated pools of water, so it was unlikely that he would get any nearer to the water than necessary to see his frog.

“What does it feel like to drown?”

Mycroft glanced at his brother. “I don’t know, Sherlock. People who drown die, so no one knows what it feels like to drown.”

He went back to his reading. Sherlock was quiet.

There was a great splash. Mycroft threw his book down and yelled, “Sherlock? Sherlock!” He saw the pond ripple. The water was murky and it was impossible to see where Sherlock was. He stripped off his shirt, trousers, and shoes and dove in after his brother, who was still nowhere to be seen. He groped about fruitlessly underwater, seeking his brother. He had to surface for air twice before his hand finally closed on Sherlock’s arm, trailing limply underwater.

They broke the surface, Mycroft gasping. The pond was far deeper than he thought. He treaded water, being sure to keep Sherlock’s head above the water. Sherlock’s lips were blue and he. wasn’t. breathing.

Mycroft kicked frantically towards the shore, pulling himself and Sherlock out of the water. Remembering the CPR diagrams he had read about, he pumped air into Sherlock’s lungs until his brother coughed weakly and spat out water.

“What in the name of everything holy do you think you were doing?” Mycroft yelled. His hands were shaking as they clutched Sherlock’s bony shoulders. “You could’ve drowned! You nearly died, Sherlock!”

Sherlock looked up at him, blue eyes clouded with tears. “I just wanted to know what it felt like.”

“What what felt like?”

“To drown.”

“Oh, for—come on. We are going back to the house. Mummy is going to be absolutely furious with you. Can you walk?”

“I think so.” Sherlock accepted Mycroft’s help up.

As they started to walk back towards the house, Sherlock tugged Mycroft to a stop.

“I knew it would be okay.”

“What?”

“I knew you would save me.”

Mycroft knelt down and put his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders. “I will always save you, if it is possible for me to do so, Sherlock, I promise. But you need to promise me that you will try your best not to do anything that will require you to be saved—I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Sherlock’s eyes were wide and round. “I promise.” Deep in his heart, Sherlock vowed to save Mycroft whenever he could, because Mycroft needed someone to look after him, too.

They walked back to the house hand-in-hand.

*

 _I’m sorry, Mycroft, that you can’t save me from this. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from this, too. I just can’t be here anymore._

 _I’m sorry._

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**iii.** _You won’t live forever in their memories. The way you treated them will._

  
“Mr. Holmes?” Mycroft looked up to see Sherlock’s doctor standing opposite him.

“Ah, Doctor. My apologies, I did not hear you come in.”

The doctor smiled. “It’s quite all right, Mr. Holmes. I am sorry to intrude.”

“How is he doing?”

“Not well, I’m afraid. His coma has persisted, and his vitals are dipping steadily. I’m afraid that he might not last long if he cannot or does not rally soon.” The doctor hesitated and then continued, “”It seems to me that he’s given up. Did Mr. Holmes suffer from depression, or suffer a loss before this incident?”

“My brother is one of the most brilliant men alive. He is anti-social, rude, arrogant, moody, depressive, and two months before this incident, as you call it, he had lost the only person outside of his family that he loved. That loss was devastating to him—I hardly recognized him in those two months so deeply and irrevocably had he changed.” Mycroft looked the doctor in the eye. “He lost his way when he lost John, and I don’t think he wants to find his way back.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Holmes.”

There was a tense, uncomfortable silence.

“All we can do for your brother is keep him comfortable. I hope that his condition will improve, but if I am to be completely honest with you, I do not think that it will.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

The doctor turned and left Mycroft alone with his brother. Mycroft stayed with Sherlock, gently stroking the back of his hand and whispering of childhood memories, until the sun sank. When the room darkened, he stood and kissed his brother’s forehead. “Until tomorrow, Sherlock,” he whispered. He left and did not look back.

*

Sherlock Holmes saw his first dead body when he was eleven years old. He woke up early one morning and went down to the kitchen to have some toast when he saw his father lying on the kitchen floor, an empty bottle of pills next to his outstretched hand. Sherlock shook his father’s shoulder, and when he got no response, went back upstairs to fetch Mummy.

“Daddy’s dead,” he announced.

Mummy sat straight up in bed, “What?”

“Daddy’s dead,” Sherlock repeated. He wasn’t upset—in fact, he was almost excited. “He’s cold and stiff and not breathing and his lips are blue. There is an empty pill bottle on the kitchen floor. Why was there a pill bottle?”

“Oh, God.” His mother turned white and got out of bed and down the hall so quickly that she nearly knocked Sherlock over.

Sherlock followed her down into the kitchen. “Why did he die? What did he do? He seemed to be in perfectly good health. I could investigate, see if I could find out why...”

“Sherlock!”

“What?”

His mother was kneeling on the floor next to his father’s body and she was crying. “Be quiet. Go and call your brother, tell him he needs to come home. I need to make some calls.”

He did as he was told. Mycroft’s silence on the other end of the line after Sherlock told him the news was forbidding. “Tell Mummy that I will be home tonight, Sherlock,” was all he said before he disconnected the line.

The next few days were a whirlwind. He had to wear a suit (which he hated) and be still and quiet for his father’s funeral. He had to endure long-lost relatives clucking over him and smothering him in hugs. All he wanted to do was know why his father died. What had caused it? When he asked Mycroft, he got a sharp “Stop asking questions, Sherlock! Can’t you see that you’re upsetting Mummy?”

“But I just want to know!”

“Some things just don’t make sense. Some things don’t have an answer.”

“There’s always an answer, Mycroft.”

“Not this time, Sherlock. Now, you really must stop this—you’re upsetting Mummy.”

“I’m not the one who upset her! I told her upsetting news. The person she should be upset with is Father. He’s the one who’s gone.”

Mycroft’s mouth tightened in a grimace.

*

Sherlock’s mother died ten years after her husband. She had cancer, and despite both of her sons’ begging, refused all treatments. She died four months after her diagnosis.

At her funeral, Sherlock stood in his suit and let Mycroft grip his shoulder.

There were no tears, just a silent understanding deep in his soul—he knew what it was like to have lost the love of one’s life and losing the will to go on, having loved and lost Victor. He always suspected that she had held on as long as she did because she needed to make sure he was grown. The cancer was just a blessing—no need to overdose on pills like their father. He told Mycroft this after her funeral. It was the only time his brother struck him—one neat punch that blacked his eye and broke his nose.

He knew he deserved it.

*

Sherlock had had two great loves in his lifetime, and both of the men he loved, Victor Trevor and John Watson, died far before their time.

Sherlock met Victor in his first week at Cambridge. They were both reading Chemistry, and therefore spent a lot of time together in classes and labs. Sherlock’s abrasive personality and penchant for listing off disturbingly accurate deductions of his classmates had not won him any friends. He was alone, and tried to tell himself that he liked it that way. But Victor Trevor was different.

“Sherlock, right?” Victor asked after they were left alone in the lab. It was the end of their first week, and Sherlock was already nearly finished with the work that was due at the end of the term.

He merely raised an elegant eyebrow in reply as he carefully squeezed one drop of hydrofluoric acid into a beaker.

Victor smiled. “I was wondering if you’d...”

“...Like to go for drinks? Yes, I thought you would want do something so pedestrian. Dull.” Sherlock turned his attention back to his experiment. It wasn’t reacting the way it was supposed to. He frowned. Interesting. A puzzle.

“If you had waited five more minutes and put in three drops, you would’ve gotten the right result.”

Sherlock spun on his stool and met Victor’s warm brown eyes. His own grey ones narrowed. “How did you—“

“I’ll make you a deal: let me buy you a drink, and I’ll tell you how I knew what you were working on there.”

“Deal.”

One drink turned into three. Sherlock had never smiled or laughed so much since his father died. He never asked Victor how he knew what had gone wrong with his experiment. In fact, he didn’t even tell Victor what he knew about him just by looking at his watch, shoes, and hair cut, which was a first. Strangely, he found himself wanting to get to know Victor the way ordinary people got to know each other, and so he filed away his deductions without thinking about them.

They stayed at the pub until it closed, and then stood awkwardly outside on the pavement. Finally, Victor smiled at him and pulled Sherlock into a one-armed hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Ye-yes. Yes, of course.”

Sherlock felt an uncharacteristic warmth in his chest as he strolled back to his flat. Yes, he was looking forward to seeing Victor the next day. He was looking forward to it greatly. Had he made a friend? Sherlock thought that perhaps, for the first time in his life, he might have.

*

Victor Trevor died in a car accident on his way home to his parents’ for the holidays. It happened in their second year at Cambridge. Sherlock had just told Victor that he loved him the morning Victor left for home. Victor had been waiting for the kettle to boil when Sherlock had come downstairs and wrapped his arms around his lover.

“Mmm..good morning, love.”

“Good morning, Sherlock. Tea?”

“Please.” He pressed a kiss into Victor’s neck and then settled his chin on his shoulder. “I love you,” he murmured. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he froze. _Where had that come from?_ But it was true—no one else had ever been as close to him, no one else, not even Mycroft, had accepted him the way Victor did. He smiled, and pressed another kiss into Victor’s throat.

Victor turned and captured his lover’s mouth in a gentle kiss. “I love you too, you nutter,” he said affectionately.

Sherlock smiled at him and let go long enough to get the mugs and box of tea from the cupboard. They drank their tea standing up, pressing kisses into each other’s mouths every few sips.

Finally, Victor set his empty mug in the sink and gave Sherlock one last, lingering kiss. “I have to go now, or I won’t make it home before my sister’s concert.”

Sherlock smiled again and walked with Victor to the door, tying Victor’s scarf around his neck as Victor buttoned his coat and grabbed his suitcase.

“See you in a week,” Victor said. He opened the door and walked out, turning to give Sherlock one final kiss. “I love you.”

“You too.” Sherlock closed the door with a soft click.

He got a call five hours later from Victor’s mother. He could barely understand her through her tears, but finally got out of her that Victor had died in an accident on his way to their house.

Sherlock went numb. He hung up without saying goodbye and drifted into their bedroom where he collapsed on their bed and cried.

After Victor’s funeral, he hardened his heart. _I will not let myself get that close to anyone ever again,_ he vowed. _Love is not worth this pain—nothing is worth this._

*

Sherlock hadn’t known it after Victor died and his heart was shattered, but there would be someone else he would love more than he thought it would be possible to love another person. He only wished that he had met John sooner. _I just wanted more time with him. I wish for so many things. I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn when we met at Bart’s. I wish I had acknowledged what I felt for him sooner. I wish I had told him more often that I loved him._

The monitors kept beeping and the ventilator kept forcing air into his lungs, but Sherlock did not know of them. He was lost in his memories of the brief time he had with Victor, with John. With the only two people who had loved Sherlock for who he was, the only two who had known him wholly and embraced him.

There was nothing for him now, except for those memories.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

**iv.** _I always thought violence didn’t solve anything. Until one day it did._

After Victor died, Sherlock was left friendless. He had acquaintances, of course, but no one was close to him. He saw Sebastian Wilkes sometimes as he wandered from class to lab in a fog of grief. His heart was still heavy from Victor’s death, and the world seemed to have lost its clarity, its color. Of everyone he and Victor had known, Sebastian was the only one who hadn’t completely abandoned Sherlock after Victor was gone. On occasion, Sebastian would walk with him to the library or to the labs. While he wasn’t Victor, there was something slightly soothing about his quiet presence. He started talking to Sebastian, and grudgingly, a few weeks later, cautiously thought of him as a friend.

That is, until Sebastian learned he could use Sherlock as a party trick. Sherlock’s ability to deduce everything about someone was well known on campus, and Sebastian, after several months of kindness towards Sherlock, started to take advantage of Sherlock’s odd gift.

“Here, Sherlock, show William your trick,” Sebastian would say, and Sherlock would perform like a trained monkey. Everything in him hated the mere idea of following along after Sebastian and doing his bidding, but he was _lonely_ and desperate to keep hold of the only person who would still talk to him.

Sherlock stayed friends with Sebastian for four months. Everything ended when he overheard Sebastian talking to one of his friends ( _studying finance like Sebastian, family has more money than Seb’s,_ Sherlock thought) about how gullible Sherlock was. “I can’t believe he hasn’t figured out that the only reason I keep him around is to get information off him. I use it to help develop business plans—you can make more money off people if you know what makes them tick, you know. I can’t stand him myself, the arrogant sod.”

Sherlock felt his ears burning as he turned and stalked away. _Fine,_ he thought, _if I’m nothing more than a party trick to him, then I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone at all. I’m better off alone, anyway._

When he saw Sebastian later that day, Sherlock refused to speak to him at first, and when Seb started getting more and more belligerent, Sherlock merely turned his cool, assessing gaze on his former friend and listed off every dirty secret and insecurity that he had never spoken of before. Seb’s friends started laughing, Seb himself flushed a deep scarlet having falsely believed that since he was Sherlock’s only friend he was immune to his deductions, and couldn’t even stutter a defense or contradiction.

Sherlock’s smile was shark-like as he spun on one heel and left. He didn’t speak to Sebastian for years, until his former friend needed a favour—his bank had been broken into and he wanted Sherlock to take a look.

*

Mycroft turned to his PA, Anthea, as she entered Sherlock’s hospital room. “Any news of Moran?”

“No, sir. We’re still looking for him. We’ve found a few of his associates and we’re working on getting a location out of them, but it’s taking longer than we thought.”

“Very well. Keep me informed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Anthea’s heels clicked against the tile as she left. Once the sound had faded, Mycroft took Sherlock’s hand again and resumed his reminisce of the day Sherlock had made his violin tutor storm out in a rage because Sherlock had told her about her husband’s affair.

As he wound down his story, he felt Sherlock’s finger move. Mycroft stopped mid-word and stared at Sherlock, hardly daring to breathe. Surely he had imagined it? But, no, there it was again, a twitch of Sherlock’s fingers against his own. “Sherlock?” he breathed. His brother didn’t respond.

Mycroft leaned forward and pressed the call button, summoning the nurse he had seen the previous day. When he told her what had happened, she rushed to get the doctor.

The doctor ran in, already looking at Sherlock’s monitors. “Any more movement?” he asked Mycroft.

“No.”

“This is an excellent sign, Mr. Holmes. Were you squeezing his hand or putting pressure on his fingernails?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Once we can see that he is responding more to stimuli, then we can see about taking him off the ventilator.”

“When?”

“We can’t be sure. It could be hours, days, or weeks before he moves up the Glasgow Coma Scale. But as I said, this is a very promising sign.”

“My brother is nothing but tenacious. If he is moving now, I can assure you that he will force himself back to wakefulness quite quickly.”

Mycroft settled in to wait.

*

Sherlock didn’t fully awaken for three more days. Two days after his finger twitched, he was off the ventilator and responding well to stimuli. On the third day, Sherlock opened his eyes to see his brother sitting next to his bed.

  
“Mycroft,” he whispered, throat still sore from the breathing tube.

“Welcome back.” Mycroft’s smile was one Sherlock hadn’t seen in years—it was warm and genuine.

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“Chasing after Moran. Falling and...oh.”

“Hitting your head hard enough to cause your brain to swell. Breaking your leg. Nearly scraping the skin from your back. You were in a coma for thirteen days, Sherlock.”

“Ah.” Sherlock paused to take this information in. “What about Moran?”

“He got away. I’ve got a team working on it.”

“They won’t find him. He’s just as good as Moriarty. I need all the information your team has.”

“Later, Sherlock. You’re in no condition to look at it now.”

“Every minute that I waste here is one more minute that Moran uses to hide further down in his bolthole.”

“I know. Get your strength back, and then we’ll discuss it.”

*

One week later, and Sherlock was released from hospital on the strict condition that he see a physical therapist three times a week and that he stay with someone who could keep an eye on him in case he fell and injured himself further.

Mycroft took him back to his house, promising to return him to Baker Street once his doctor cleared him to be on his own. Sherlock spent his time locked in the guestroom reading over the thick files on Moran Mycroft had brought him. When he wasn’t reading files, he was staring out the window, twisting his ring on his finger and chewing his lip.

He missed John more than he could put into words. Even though it had been two and half months since John died, he still looked over his shoulder to share a grin with John, still rolled over in the night expecting to feel the warmth of John’s body sleeping next to him. But there was nothing.

 _I just need to find Moran. Then, finally, all this will be over and I can go in good conscience. I’m sorry this is taking so long, John._ He gave the ring he wore around his neck a brief squeeze and then went downstairs to harry Mycroft into taking him to Bart’s. He had an idea about one of the soil samples found at the scene of his accident.

*

Sherlock’s world ended like this:

There was a standoff. There were guns. There was no one there but he and Moran. Moran was the last—all his associates were gone, snatched up by Mycroft or the Yard (on Sherlock’s tips, of course).

There were threats and warnings.

There were two shots.

There was one body on the ground, dead from a bullet between the eyes.

There was Sherlock Holmes, bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to the stomach.

There was no-one coming for him. John was gone, Lestrade didn’t know where he was, and Mycroft would never make it in time.

 _So this is how it feels,_ Sherlock thought. _Christ, I wish I had been there for John. He shouldn’t have been alone._

 _I deserve to be alone._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**v.** _I love the way your face lights up when someone says “it might be dangerous”_

  
Sherlock knew he was dying and, being up on the roof of an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of London, he knew had no chance of being found in time. He could text someone to come find him, but his mind was fogged with the pain and he couldn’t quite remember where he was. He knew the general area, but that would not be much help for a rescuer. He knew his body would eventually be found; Mycroft would see that he had gone up into this building by the CCTV camera across the street, and when he was no longer able to answer texts, Mycroft would scour the CCTV footage and find him. At least he knew that there would be no one there for him. Unlike John, who had probably hoped that Sherlock would find him soon enough to make a difference.

But then again, they had found each other at the right time, which made Sherlock’s failure to find John when he needed him the most hurt even more.

*

Sherlock had been clean for 4 years, eight months, and twenty-seven days when he met John Watson.

John had limped into the lab that Sherlock appropriated as his own at St. Bart’s. He looked unassuming, plain, ordinary. Dull. Boring. He wouldn’t have given the man a second glance or wasted any more energy thinking about him if the stranger hadn’t offered the use of his mobile. _Ah, a puzzle,_ Sherlock thought as he took the proffered phone, sneaking a glance at the man’s wrists. _No tan line above the wrist, short haircut, military stance, hospital-issued cane, not asking for a chair, mobile’s a gift from his alcoholic brother. Conclusion: former military discharged for injury, doctor who trained at Bart’s, psychosomatic limp, Iraq or Afghanistan from the tan, broke and looking for a cheap flat. Must be a potential flatmate who Mike knows from Bart’s—he wanted to introduce us._

All this information passed through Sherlock’s mind in a matter of seconds as he composed his text. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” he casually asked the stranger _John. John Watson_ he remembered.

John looked surprised, but answered readily enough, “Afghanistan, sorry, but how did you—”

Sherlock blustered out the door, giving the address, his name, and his excuse for leaving so quickly nearly in one breath.

He was sure that John wouldn’t show up for their meeting at 221B the next day, but, to Sherlock’s surprise, he did. John took in the mess, the chemistry equipment, the skull, Sherlock himself with aplomb. He didn’t even flinch when Sherlock called the skull a friend. Something deep in Sherlock stirred at John’s acceptance of Sherlock’s quirks— _could he possibly be as understanding as Victor? Could he actually become a friend?_ while another part of him was screaming at him to _stay away! Don’t get close—he’ll leave in the end, they all do._ He shoved both voices aside as Lestrade (only he took those steps two at a time) ran up the stairs and told him to come to Brixton. _A serial killer! Brilliant!_ he exulted as he gave a little hop in joy.

John just stared at him as he whirled around the flat pulling on his scarf and coat and slamming the door behind him.

Sherlock made it down six steps before he paused. _I wonder if he’d like to come along? Could be useful to have an army doctor on hand—and maybe he’d work with me better than Anderson._

 _Ask him!_

 _Don’t! He won’t come along, and if he did, he’ll run screaming when he sees how excited you get over a dead body. Besides, he’s got a limp; he’ll just slow you down._

Sherlock turned and ran back up the stairs.

To his surprise, John was actually excited to be invited along. Perhaps the man wasn’t depressed, as Sherlock had initially thought, but bored. Bored Sherlock could handle, depressed, he couldn’t. He gave a private smile when John shifted in the cab and asked how Sherlock had known all of those things about him without John having said a word. He smiled more broadly when John praised him for knowing so much from so little.

 _This just might work after all,_ Sherlock thought as they made it up the stairs to the crime scene.

*

He had forgotten John. He had forgotten John, and Mycroft had picked him up and threatened him—he could smell Mycroft’s cologne and the interior of his car on John’s coat when he slapped Sherlock’s phone into his hand.

This was unexpected. He felt guilty at leaving John behind and furious with Mycroft for interfering in his life again. Right. Distraction from this uncomfortable train of thought. He stood and snapped up the pink suitcase he had left John behind to find and opened it.

John looked suspicious. _He thinks I killed her. Dull._ “I suppose I should mention I didn’t kill her.”

The suspicion faded from John’s face, but he still looked wary.

John’s phone rang. It was the murderer, had to be. Time to intrude on Angelo’s hospitality again.

*

John followed him readily as they raced across rooftops and confronted an American in a cab—not the murderer, then. _Typical soldier, loyal to a fault_ Sherlock thought as they made their way back to Baker Street. _But at least I got rid of that bloody limp_ he thought with triumph as he texted Angelo:

 _Please bring cane left at our booth to 221B Baker St at your convenience.  
SH_

John’s giggle was infectious. _I want to hear him laugh more_ Sherlock thought as John went to answer the door. His side felt cold—irrationally, he wanted John standing close enough that their shoulders brushed and he could feel his body heat again. _Stop it,_ he scolded himself. _You’re not interested, and he’s not interested either._  
The look on John’s face when he walked back into the flat with his forgotten cane was one Sherlock wouldn’t quickly forget—it was one of wonder and confusion and happiness, and Sherlock’s actions had put it there. Luckily, Mrs. Hudson’s appearance kept the smug grin from forming on Sherlock’s face as he and John ran up the stairs to find Lestrade and half of CID rummaging through their flat.

*

He had left John behind again, and this time, Sherlock was regretting that decision. There was no easy way out of this one—this was a game of chance the cabbie was playing, and Sherlock was not sure he could win.

He held the pill up to the light, stalling for a few more moments. _Surely, John will come after me—he can track the phone. I just have to give him time...._

 _And why do I trust this man I’ve just met? Why would he come after me? We don’t know each other, he has no reason to be invested in my welfare._

His hand was trembling just slightly as he lifted the pill towards his lips.

The gunshot was deafening.

*

When he made it outside, John was standing just outside the police cordon, looking small and unassuming. Sherlock glanced at him, and the returned for a longer look as the paramedic draped the hateful orange blanket around him again. _It was John. He shot the cabbie, he had to have. His hands couldn’t have shaken at all._

 _Good God, what a shot._

He fumbled off a response to Lestrade’s question and made a beeline for John. “Good shot,” he said, and surprised himself by asking after John’s well-being, adding, “You did just kill a man,” and John shot him a disapproving look.

Sherlock felt a giddy joy that even Mycroft’s sneering couldn’t dissipate.

 _This man who I have known for less than a day just killed a man to protect me,_ he thought giddily as they wandered off to get a cab back to Baker Street. _This is incredible._

As they laughed over Chinese take-out, Sherlock marveled at John’s calm. _He’s just killed someone less than an hour ago and here he is laughing over dinner. What an extraordinary man._

Sherlock’s heart cautiously opened up a little to the plain, ordinary, _astonishing_ John Watson. _I think I might just have found someone to whom I can actually relate. Actually be myself. Brilliant._

Sherlock fell asleep that night with a small smile on his face. He dreamed of gunshots and pills.

*

There was pain. It felt like his organs were threatening to spill out from between his fingers clenched around the bullet wound. _What would John do? Pressure. Pressure and smooth my hair with his free hand._ He put as much pressure as he could on the bleeding wound. He pulled out his mobile and laboriously typed a message to Lestrade:

 _Moran dead. Am wounded.  
SH_

He slumped back against the skylight. The skies were darkening; it would rain soon.

His mobile beeped.

 _Where are you? I’ll come get you.  
GL_

 _Warehouse_

He passed out from the pain before Lestrade could text him back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

**vi.** _Through your bedroom window you look so sad at night and I imagine that I am what you need, but realize that’s crazy._

  
Sherlock fell in love with John like this:

After the case with the cabbie and the pills, there was a drought of cases. Sherlock was bored, so he started doing experiments.

John put up with the intestines and liver in the fridge. He did less well with the toes Sherlock put in the toaster.

John was, in nearly every sense, the perfect flatmate. He didn’t complain about Sherlock’s lazing about on the sofa all day (“I’m thinking, John”) or the skull, or the experiments in the fridge (although he did insist that Sherlock keep things in sealed containers and on the bottom shelves; Sherlock complied with an ease that startled him), or the violin concertos at two in the morning.

One of these concertos started early in the day while John was out for his therapy appointment. Sherlock had started plucking fitfully at the strings as John was leaving, and then finally took up the bow and started playing his favorites: Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart. He was lost in thought, body swaying slightly in time to the music when a noise startled him. He turned, bow frozen on the strings. It was John, back from his appointment already.

John was standing in the kitchen doorway, leaning on the doorjamb. He was looking at Sherlock as if he had never seen him before. His gaze was soft and steady, and there was some emotion Sherlock couldn’t quite identify shining in the back of John’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” John said quietly. “But that was beautiful. You play beautifully.”

John’s cheeks were stained red—he was embarrassed to be caught staring at me, Sherlock thought. Instead of pointing out the signs of John’s embarrassment, Sherlock found himself smiling back at his friend and gesturing to the chair John had made his own. “Sit, if you want. Playing helps me think.” He turned back to the window and heard John settle into his chair, cross his legs.

Sherlock drew the bow across the strings and let the music flow from him. When he stopped playing over an hour later, John was asleep in his chair, a smile spread across his face. Sherlock found himself fighting the urge to run a hand through John’s hair, to cup his cheek and kiss his forehead, his lips. He did none of these things. He put the violin back in its case and retreated to his room, but not before indulging in one long look at John sleeping in his chair. _He looks so much younger and carefree when he sleeps. I shall have to play for him more often._

And as he shut his bedroom door, Sherlock suddenly recognized the look in John’s eyes as he had leaned against the kitchen doorframe—it was love.

Sherlock was surprised to realize that that knowledge didn’t repulse him as it normally did. He had loved once, and his lover had died. Love only led to heartbreak. But as he sat on his bed and reached for a book, he thought, _but John is worth the risk._

*

After his realization that John loved him and that he just might possibly love John in return, John went and nearly burst that feeling.

Sebastian, smarmy git that he was, had just emailed Sherlock out of the blue, asking for his assistance in a robbery at the bank he worked for. Seb’s use of “buddy” in his email made Sherlock snarl and resolve not to help the bastard, but when John leaned forward and haltingly asked if Sherlock could loan him some money, Sherlock changed his mind. He wouldn’t help Seb for Seb’s sake, but it would help John because he could charge Seb for his time, and John could have that money. Mind made up, he swirled on his coat and swept off to the bank.

He made a special point of introducing John as his friend to Sebastian, his own petty way of showing Seb that he could make friends, that he wasn’t relying on Seb anymore. John’s quick correction of friend to “colleague,” stung Sherlock more than he cared to admit to himself. He didn’t miss Seb’s quick quirk of a smile at John’s defensiveness.

*

The case proved to be an interesting one. Whoever had spray painted the warning intended for Eddie van Coon was clever—that window was a long way up.

Van Coon was dead, not surprising. The message at the bank was obviously a code, one that meant something to van Coon, but what was it? John was gone, out looking for a job (dull), and Sherlock, having perused the news sites while waiting for John to come back and act as a sounding board, found another murder, a journalist this time, who died in similar circumstances to van Coon.

When John did return, he had a worrying swagger. _He’s found some woman, must have a date,_ Sherlock thought in disgust. “How was it?” he asked to confirm his suspicions.

“Great, she was great.”

Sherlock’s heart sank a bit. “She?” he asked, lip curling in an involuntary sneer.

“It,” John corrected lamely.

Sherlock pushed his anger deep inside him as they ran all over London searching for more graffiti, more data. _You were the one who told him you were married to your work, is it any wonder that he thinks he can’t pursue you, even if he does feel something for you?_

It took everything in him not to lean down and kiss John at the railway tracks after he gripped his friend’s head in his hands and spun him around, trying to help him remember what he saw. John disentangled himself and pulled out his mobile, showing Sherlock the picture he had taken of the wall before the graffiti had been painted over.

*

They hit a dead end with the books. Even after staying up all night to sort through Lukis’ and van Coon’s libraries, they still were no closer to cracking the code Soo Lin had helped them with. When John returned from shift at the surgery, Sherlock announced that they were going out. When John countered with his date that night, Sherlock scoffed. “Isn’t that what we do?” he asked in answer to John’s definition of a date.

“No, it isn’t,” John answered. But he looked a little wistful as he said it. Sherlock filed that information away. _Take John on a date,_ he noted, _one where there aren’t discussions of crime scenes or ones that aren’t actually stakeouts._

He suggested the circus for their date, and while John had initially shot down the idea, he and Sarah showed up anyway. Sherlock made a point to reserve the tickets under his own name, just to show Sarah that she was the interloper here. To help make that impression clearer, he loomed over her during the date, making sure to lean down and whisper into John’s ear.

While he wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted a relationship with John to proceed, he knew one thing: John was _his_ and he was John’s, even if neither man could admit it yet.

*

Sarah proved to be annoyingly helpful (the woman smashed someone over the head with a stout chunk of wood, for heaven’s sake) in helping to crack the code left at the railway tracks.

When Sherlock ran off to go to the museum to find the book Soo Lin used, John and Sarah were kidnapped by Shan’s thugs. Sherlock never made it to the museum—a tourist couple triggered a revelation—the book was the A-Z! _Stupid!_ Sherlock chastised himself. _Of course everyone’s going to have the A-Z. How could I have missed this?_ He ran back up the stairs to tell John the good news and to show him the translated message. When he burst into the sitting room and saw the gold paint on the window, his heart nearly stopped. He ripped his copy of a London map off his bookshelf and raced off to find John at the black tramway.

*

When it was over, and John and Sarah were untied and helped into a cab, Sherlock was relieved to see that Sarah was throwing off signals of breaking it off with John. _He needs the danger and the excitement of the chase just as I do, and she can’t understand that_ , he thought as he left the two of them downstairs. He heard John call her a taxi, and then heard his feet tread heavily on the stairs.

“We broke it off,” he told Sherlock.

“Ah,” Sherlock said, fighting off a smile of triumph.

“Ah? That’s all you can say after we were kidnapped and nearly died? No, wait, why am I surprised at that. It’s very you.” He stormed off up to his room.

Sherlock just smiled. Now that John would no longer be distracted by a woman, Sherlock could move in. He pulled his violin and played some of John’s favorite pieces as an apology and to ward off the nightmares he knew John would have after his trauma that evening.

When John came down to the kitchen the next morning, Sherlock was hunched over a Petri dish. John brushed a hand over Sherlock’s shoulder in a subtle bid for his attention. “Thanks for playing that, last night.”

Sherlock just smiled.

*

Lestrade stared at his phone. Warehouse? There were thousands of warehouses in London. Typical Sherlock, always cryptic even when hurt.

 _Which warehouse? I need a bit more than that.  
GL_

There was no response.

Lestrade let a small sliver of panic creep in. Sherlock always answered texts, especially when he needed something from Lestrade. Something was wrong.

“Donovan!”

“Sir?”

“Get the CCTV feeds pulled. Find out where Sherlock went. He’s at a warehouse somewhere—I’d start at Baker Street and follow him from there. And hurry, he’s hurt and not answering his texts.”

“Yes, sir.”

Outside, it started to rain.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**vii.** _There are no words for the way I feel about you and I’d be surprised if there were words for the things I want to do to you._

  
After Sherlock solved Sebastian’s case, he was bored. Life was dull and London’s finest were actually doing their jobs, more’s the pity. Since the criminal classes weren’t going to provide him with entertainment, he turned his attention to observing John.

John was _fascinating._ He watched Sherlock all the time, sneaking glances when he thought Sherlock wasn’t looking. He seemed to focus on lips, eyes, and hands, but every once in a while (about 3% of the times Sherlock caught him staring) John’s eyes were fixed on Sherlock’s groin. The knowledge made Sherlock’s stomach clench with longing.

But to be fair, Sherlock spent a great deal of time covertly studying John. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he read the newspaper. He constantly licked his lips, just a quick dart of pink tongue sneaking out. His tongue made an appearance more often when John was nervous, aroused, or thinking. His fingers were blunt and his palms were broad. When he came home after a shift at the surgery, his fingers would be drier than normal from the harsh soap. He wore his clothes like a second skin, but his clothes seemed more like camouflage than Sherlock’s. There was a great deal of steel hidden under the gentle, caring façade John put on. He preferred tea (dash of milk and one sugar) to coffee (two dashes of milk and two sugars). He preferred Mendelssohn to Mozart, Bach to Stravinsky. His left hand shook slightly if there were no cases, or if he spent too long at the surgery. His hand did not shake at all when he held a gun or chased down criminals.

Maddeningly, though, Sherlock could not gauge the depth of John’s feelings for him. Emotions had never been his strong suit, and when he and Victor had been together, Victor had always been the one to tell him just how he felt. John, however, was a more private man than Victor, perhaps more afraid of being hurt. _Perhaps John doesn’t think I care about him,_ Sherlock thought one day during that interminable case-free period. John was walking slowly up the stairs to their flat ( _long day at the surgery, his leg must be playing up on him again, but he wasn’t gone long enough to have got the shopping. It’s pleasant outside, perhaps he walked home instead of taking the bus_ ), his footfalls heavy.

“Hello,” John said as he walked in the sitting room and saw Sherlock, still in his dressing gown, stretched out on the sofa. “Have you been lying there all day?”

Sherlock arched one eyebrow.

“Well, get up and get dressed. We’re getting you out of this flat for a few hours. It’s been weeks since your last case and you haven’t been out once since the last one. I had to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way home, it’s so nice out.”

Sherlock grunted.

“Oh, for the love of—” John stalked over and easily pulled Sherlock off the sofa. “Go on, shower.” He gave Sherlock a push towards the bathroom.

Sherlock went, all the places where John’s hands had touched him warm under his dressing gown.

*

It was another two weeks of soul-shattering boredom before Lestrade finally, _finally_ texted him with a case.

 _Got one for you. 26 Gresham St., EC2V 5AA. Woman dead, no ideas.  
GL_

 _Twenty minutes.  
SH_

When he arrived at the scene, Lestrade was waiting for him. Sherlock ignored Donovan’s sneer and focused on what Lestrade was saying.

“Katherine Brooks, 32, died of strangulation. Unknown garrote. She works for....”

Sherlock cut him off with an imperious wave of his hand. He crouched down next to the dead woman’s body and inspected her nails, hands, throat, and face. He allowed himself a small smile. _Anderson wouldn’t solve this if the guilty party swung a cricket bat at him,_ he thought as he stood up. He sent a quick text to John, who should just be getting off his surgery shift to meet him here, and then turned back to Lestrade.

“She was strangled by her necklace. Where is it?”

“There is no necklace.”

Sherlock sighed. “Then her killer must’ve have taken it with him. He must have been someone close to the victim to know that the chain would strong enough to act as a garrote. Perhaps her husband, maybe a lover. He had to finish the job with his hands, you can see the finger-shaped bruises too. Find the necklace and you’ll find your killer.”

“How did you know it was the necklace?”

“Look at the pattern of bruises—they were made by very small links, in fact, so small that it’s hard to see the individual bruises—they merge into one bruise. Really, Lestrade, are you sure Anderson is the best the Yard has to offer if he didn’t see that?”

“How do you know she had a husband? There’s no wedding ring.”

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention before he could answer Lestrade. It was John. Sherlock’s face lit up with a grin as he cried, “John! We need to see a man about a missing necklace!”

John’s answering grin sent a thrill down Sherlock’s spine. _When this case is over,_ Sherlock thought, _I need to conduct an experiment on John’s attraction to me._ It took a great deal not to reach out for John’s hand and pull him back to the street to hail a cab.

*

It took Sherlock a distressingly long time to find Katherine Brooks’ killer. It was her lover, jealous that she was leaving him to go back to being faithful to her husband. The lover had used the necklace he bought for her to strangle her.

John struggled up the stairs to their flat, barely able to keep his eyes open. Sherlock ran a quick mental calculation and realized that John had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours. John yawned, and despite his tiredness, moved to the kitchen, offering Sherlock tea. Sherlock didn’t want tea. He wanted John, with a ferocity that he hadn’t felt since Victor. It took him by surprise, this renewed need to be close to someone, to touch them, to share their breath as they kissed. Sherlock made a decision. He was going to kiss John, experiment be hanged.

John was filling the kettle, and Sherlock, refusing to allow him to be distracted by tea, reached out and turned off the tap, deliberately brushing against John as he did. John’s breath caught and he jumped at the contact. Intrigued by this reaction, Sherlock settled his right hand on John’s waist. He could feel John’s warmth seeping through his shirt, could almost hear John’s heartbeat thundering in his chest. Sherlock inhaled sharply.

For his part, John took a deep, shuddering breath and slowly tuned to face Sherlock. John’s eyes were wide, pupils widening in arousal. Entranced, Sherlock stepped closer, crowding John against the counter.

“Er, Sherlock?” John stuttered, sounding a bit out of breath.

Sherlock’s eyes were glued to John’s lips as his tongue darted out to moisten them. “I saw you watching me.”

John swallowed. “Wha—”

“You’ve been watching me for weeks. Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

“Nnno.” John cleared his throat and tried again. “Sorry, I’ll just sto—”

“I don’t mind it, John. And I can’t figure out why I don’t mind it. I rather like it, in fact.” It had been so long since anyone had looked at him the way John did, with love and longing and affection and exasperation. Not since Victor.

“Oh.”

“John.”

“Yes?”

“John, can I revoke what I said on our first date?”

“Our first what? Sherlock, we’ve talked about this—we haven’t been on any dates.”

“I’m not married to my work, John. I’m just not interested in anyone. Well, wasn’t interested. I think....” Sherlock glanced down, steeled himself, and met John’s eyes. “I think I might be interested.”

And, God help him, he was. He hadn’t felt like this since the day Victor died. That morning he had looked at his lover standing in front of the sink waiting on the kettle to boil and smiling at him with so much love in his eyes, and Sherlock’s heart had been so full he thought it would burst. Then Victor had died and Sherlock had never imagined anything could hurt so much. He had seriously considered following Victor, but the thought of what that would do to his mother stopped him from even trying. But he understood better why, after Father died, Mummy had withdrawn, lost interest in everything and everyone. The same happened to Sherlock. It was why he had told Mycroft that Mummy hadn’t fought the cancer because it was an easy way to follow their father.

John’s smile was soft and small. “Care to test your theory?”

Sherlock knew that his confusion was written on his face because John reached up and gently, slowly, pulled Sherlock down and kissed him. He pulled back after a moment. Sherlock was stunned. Everything else was pushed aside and his thoughts were consumed by thoughts of John John John he hasn’t shaved in two days and his stubble itches his lips are slightly chapped he smells like London and fog and tea and desert he smells like John he tastes like home.

“You okay?” John asked after a moment.

Sherlock’s brain was still processing the data it just received. It had devolved to John John John John want to taste him again feel him against me John John John John John John

Sherlock swallowed and visibly gathered himself. “I think that the experiment needs to be repeated. Multiple times.” He leaned down and captured John’s mouth with his own.

The kettle and tiredness were forgotten as John Watson and Sherlock Holmes kissed until their lips were swollen and tingling, until there were no thoughts of anything except of breathing each other’s air. John’s hand was in his hair, tangled in his curls, and Sherlock was gripping John’s shirt so tightly that he might well leave permanent wrinkles in the fabric.

 _There is nothing better than this,_ Sherlock thought as they broke apart gasping for breath. John’s smile was small and sweet, and Sherlock couldn’t resist kissing him again, slipping his tongue into John’s mouth as he laughed and kissed Sherlock as if he were the only thing keeping him afloat.

*

The cold rain made the puddle of his blood on the roof thin out and spread. Sherlock spluttered and woke as the unforgiving cold drops splashed his face. He was shaking now, his hands and fingers trembling with the shock and the cold. He barely managed to grip his phone as he squinted at the messages Lestrade had left. His shaking hands made it difficult to type, but he managed to reply to Lestrade:

 _docks  
SH_

Laboriously, he managed to open a new text and chose Mycroft from his contacts.

 _help_

Sherlock curled into himself as best he could, crying out in pain as the movement jostled his wound.

 _John? I need you, I hurt where are you why aren't you here i need you_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**viii.** _You are the love of my life so far_

  
Once he had started kissing John that night, with John pressed into the counter’s edge and Sherlock’s hands on John’s waist, Sherlock found it hard to stop. John, laughing softly, finally broke them apart, and gave Sherlock a gentle push. Sherlock immediately felt cold—what if he had somehow managed to misinterpret what John wanted? He seemed to be enjoying kissing—his pupils were blown wide, his temperature was up, his skin was flushed, his breathing rapid, his lips swollen. John must’ve read the panic blooming in Sherlock’s eyes because he reached down and took Sherlock’s hand, interlacing their fingers. He gave Sherlock a gentle tug towards the stairs, towards John’s room. Sherlock froze, pulling John back. He wasn’t ready to share his body with John, not yet. It had been a long time since Victor, and since Victor, there had been no one else.

John, blessed, wonderful, understanding John must have understood that Sherlock was skittish and gave him another reassuring smile. “Just to sleep, Sherlock. I’m beyond knackered and I...” he trailed off.

Sherlock watched him, holding his breath to hear what John would say next. He was on the cusp of vibrating with nervousness.

“I just want to hold you. There’s no need to rush into anything—I don’t want to rush into anything. I just...want you close. Is that all right?”

Sherlock nearly sagged in relief. “Yes. Yes, I think that’s all right.” He followed John up the stairs to his room, but balked again in the doorway.

“I might not stay the whole night. Would that bother you?” He couldn’t justify not reminding John of his odd sleep habits—he rarely slept through the night as it was, and it had been years since he had shared a bed with another person. He was afraid he had forgotten how.

“Sherlock,” John said softly. He reached out and touched Sherlock’s arm. “Hey.” Sherlock looked away. “Can you look at me?” Sherlock’s eyes met his and skittered away again. “Whatever you want, Sherlock. I mean that. There is. No. Rush. Okay?”

Sherlock looked relieved and leaned forward to give John a nearly chaste closed-mouth kiss. John smiled up at him. “I’m going to change. Will you come back in a minute?”

Sherlock nodded and padded off down the stairs. When he came back, John was already in bed and snoring gently. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, then climbed in and curled around John, his breath stirring the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. He slept.

Sherlock woke abruptly at 6 AM, still curled around John. He was momentarily disoriented as he rolled over and carefully stood up. He padded downstairs and slipped into his room to change. John would be awake soon; his breathing was less deep, his REM cycles complete. Sherlock knew that if he had stayed in bed, he never would let John leave it, and neither of them was ready for that yet.

 _But someday soon, if he will have me,_ Sherlock thought as he heard John’s footsteps on the stairs.

*

Sherlock started coming to bed with John at least two nights a week. As much as he wanted to be there more, the habit of working through the night and sleeping only on occasion was a hard one to break. John never complained, even when Sherlock slipped cold hands or feet on the doctor’s warm feet or sides. Sherlock started timing his appearances in bed to John’s nightmares; although the nightmares came more and more sporadically now than they had when John first moved in, Sherlock knew he was still having them once or twice a week. He made a careful study of the conditions and mannerisms that predicted a nightmare and managed to slip into bed on the nights when he thought it likely John would have one. When John started moaning and tossing restlessly in his sleep, Sherlock would gently rub John’s back or shoulders, press gentle kisses into his hair, and murmur quiet nothings into his ear. John would settle into more peaceful dreams, and after assuring himself that John would not slip back into his nightmare, Sherlock would slip quietly from the bed and back to his experiments.

Sixteen days into their new relationship, John was at the surgery while Sherlock, bored, started going through boxes that had not been unpacked. He found one of John’s boxes tucked away in a corner of his room. Sherlock had never been one for impulse control or for respecting privacy. So it was without hesitation that he took the box down to the sitting room and opened it.

The box was full of photographs. There were two smaller boxes inside. One had John’s medals. Another had some jewelry: a woman’s wedding ring—his mother’s, most likely, and a thin chain with no pendant. Sitting on top of the photographs were two kings from a chess set. The black one had JW carved into the bottom, and the white king had BM carved into its bottom. He set the two smaller boxes and the kings on the floor and turned his attention to the photographs.

There weren’t many of John as a child. There were a few of the typical Christmas and first day of school photos. John’s smile hadn’t changed from his youth, but his eyes in the photos were less troubled, full of innocence, laughter, and impishness.

There were photos of John’s graduating class, each of them holding their diplomas and grinning like fools. Sherlock recognized Mike Stamford, standing behind John, whose smile was smaller, more private than his classmates’, but was no less joyous.

Sherlock spent more time studying the only photo of John, Harry, and their parents together. All of the other photos of John and his family had had at least one person missing as that person had been taking the photos. This photo must have been taken shortly after John joined the RAMC; he was in his dress uniform, looking proud and nervous at the same time as he stood ramrod-straight next to his mother, who had her arm wrapped around his waist. Mrs. Watson was three inches shorter than her son. He had her kind eyes and his father’s smile. Mr. Watson had given John his blue eyes and sandy-blond hair. Both of his parents were beaming with proud smiles. Harry, on the other hand, had a faint scowl and stood slightly apart from her family. _She didn’t approve of John joining up. She was used to getting the attention, and now that John had it, she was jealous_ he thought as he squinted slightly at the picture. Harry was about two inches shorter than John, and her eyes were a lighter blue. Her hair was the dark brown as their mother’s, and if she smiled, Sherlock knew that she and her mother would share the same smile.

Then he picked up the last set of photos. These had been on top of the pile when he opened the box, but as he had unloaded the box before looking at anything, they ended up on the bottom. These pictures were from John’s military career. There were photos of John and his army buddies in Frankfurt, in Tokyo, in Paris. Then there were the pictures from Afghanistan. These pictures were more intimate, more personal than the ones he had just looked at. In the previous photos, John was always pictured with a group. In these, he was alone or with another man. The man was several inches taller than John, with close-cropped brown hair and warm brown eyes. There were pictures of John, tanned and smiling outside a tent, dressed in fatigues, clutching a helmet with medical insignia on it. There was one that nearly took Sherlock’s breath away. John was in three-quarter’s profile to the camera. The sun was sinking and the sky looked like it was on fire. But it was the look on John’s face that arrested Sherlock’s attention. It was the same look of love that John gave him now. Whoever it was behind the camera was someone John loved.

Then he came to the last photo. John and the brown haired, brown eyed soldier he had seen in four other photos with John in Afghanistan were standing pressed close together. John was grinning with joy as the other man kissed his cheek. It wasn’t a kiss given in jest—it was a kiss one lover gave to another, sweet and gentle. The other man’s expression held nothing but bliss and love.

Just as Sherlock was absorbing this information, John’s voice startled him.

“What are you doing?” John snapped. “Those are private!”

Sherlock jerked his head up and turned the photograph so John could see it. “Who is this?” Sherlock asked without malice, just simple curiosity. “He was someone important to you; there are five other photographs with him—no one else except your parents and Harry feature as often in your photographs. He only appears in your pictures from Afghanistan, so you met him there. But you don’t speak of anyone specifically when you talk about your war experiences, so he was important to you but whatever happened between you is too painful to talk about, so you don’t. Whatever did happen was traumatic but you miss him—these photos are well-thumbed and were on top of the pile, so you look at them often. But the box was dusty, at least five months’ worth, so you haven’t looked at them since you started developing feelings for me.”

John sighed and crossed the living room and stood next to his flatmate. “He was my med tech. And yes, I met him in Afghanistan, and yes, we were close—he was important to me.”

Sherlock’s eyes lit up when his deductions were confirmed. “And what happened to him?”

John couldn’t answer for a moment. He sank down next to Sherlock and gently took the photo from him. “His name is...was, I suppose I should say, Bill Murray.” John stopped and cleared his throat. “We were lovers. He died from a GSW to the chest. He was shielding me while I worked on someone else.”

Sherlock took John’s hand, absently tracing a pattern on the back of his hand. “Did you love him?”

“I did. I hope he knew that. I never told him. And that’s the one thing that I regret out of everything.”

Sherlock looked thoughtful for a moment. He opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything. Then, “Will you tell me about him?”

John spent the next two hours telling Sherlock about Bill. He kept playing with the kings that had been in the box with the photographs until Sherlock picked up the white chess piece and looking at the BM carved in the bottom of it as John told him about carving them after he’d left hospital. When John wound down his story, Sherlock leaned over and kissed him gently. “Thank you, John.”

*

After John told Sherlock about Bill, Sherlock came to bed with him every night. They still had not made love yet; they shared increasingly intense kisses and ran their hands up under shirts, but nothing further. Sherlock was paralysed with the fear that if he finally gave in to his desire and slept with John that John would fall under the same curse Victor had and would die or leave. He knew this fear was irrational—John was a soldier and could take care of himself—but that didn’t make the fear any less real. So when John’s hands tried to slip past Sherlock’s waist, he inevitably tensed or flinched and John immediately pulled his hands away. Sherlock hated himself for the flicker of guilt and lust that passed over John’s face each time.

It took another month and a half after John telling him about Bill Murray before Sherlock finally made up his mind to tell John about Victor and why he was so afraid of taking their relationship further. He warred with his body’s desire to be buried in John, to have John buried in him and his mind’s fierce need to protect itself from an imagined potential hurt. He finally gave in one night after John had kissed him breathless after a long chase through London in pursuit of an art thief.

Sherlock stripped down to just his pants and, taking a deep breath, crawled into bed next to John and held him close, pressing his face into the back of John’s neck. He waited for a moment, breathing him in. John stirred and rolled to face him, one hand curling around him to stroke Sherlock’s back. Sherlock tucked his face into the crook of John’s neck and took a deep breath.

“What is it?” John murmured.

“I need to tell you something.”

John was silent, but his hand never stopped smoothing itself up and down Sherlock’s back.

“I loved someone once, and I lost him. His name was Victor Trevor, and we met at Cambridge. I loved him for almost two years, and he died the day I told him so.”

“I’m so sorry, Sherlock,” John whispered as he held Sherlock tighter and kissed the top of his head. “What happened?”

“He was in a car accident. It was the start of Easter hols and he had to go home to see his sister’s recital. I told him I loved him and he got in his car and the next time I saw him, he was in a coffin. I’ve never let myself get close to anyone but you since then. And even now, I’m terrified to let you in fully because I know once I do, you’ll die and it will be my fault. I can’t go through that again, John, especially not with you.” Sherlock stopped himself before he went and spilled anymore of his innermost secrets. He tensed, waiting for John to shove him from his bed, to laugh at him, to tell him to get over it like Mycroft had three years ago.

John’s hand resumed its rhythmic stroking. “Sherlock, I’m not going anywhere. Well, at least, as long as you’ll have me.” He stopped speaking as Sherlock nuzzled into his neck.

“John?”

“Hmmm?”

“I’ve never....done this before.” The admission was hushed, breathed into John’s neck. He had had sex, of course, and he had loved Victor, but he had never told his secrets to anyone. No one had accepted him the way John did, and the intimacy of it nearly took his breath away.

John kissed the top of his head. “I’ve told you before—it’s all fine.”

Of course John understood what he meant. John always understood him. He started pressing kisses into John’s neck and slid his hands up under John’s t-shirt, reveling in the smooth skin under his fingertips. John groaned and tipped his head back to allow him better access as Sherlock’s kisses moved up his throat. Sherlock tugged on the hem of his shirt and John reluctantly pulled back long enough to pull the shirt over his head.

Their eyes met and locked for a moment before Sherlock started pressing kisses into John’s chest. He mouthed John’s scar and pulled back slightly to study it. John flushed and said, “I know it’s ugly” but Sherlock cut him off with a deep kiss.

“It’s not ugly. It’s a part of you, not all of you,” Sherlock said when they parted. He traced his fingers over it before trailing them down to roll John’s left nipple in his fingers. John gasped appreciatively and kissed Sherlock back, slipping one of his hands down to the pyjama trousers he was still wearing. He pulled them down and kicked them off the bed while Sherlock tugged his own pants down his legs and off.

They rolled to face each other, kissing each other deeply. John reached and tugged Sherlock’s hips into his, and when their erections brushed, both men moaned. Sherlock reached down and brushed his fingers along John’s penis, noting its length and thickness. John was moaning in pleasure, head tipped back and throat exposed. Sherlock leaned up and bit lightly at his throat, feeling John swallow under his lips. “Nightstand,” John gasped. “There’s lube and condoms in the drawer.”

Sherlock rolled over to open the drawer and nearly dropped the requested items when John pressed himself against his back and tweaked a nipple before running his hand down Sherlock’s stomach and cupping his erection. He squeezed once, and then slowly stroked from root to tip. Sherlock shuddered and rolled back to face John, dropping the condom and lube.

John looked at him, and at the look on Sherlock’s face, scrambled for the lube and slicked his fingers. He gently pulled Sherlock’s thigh up and over his own and reached behind him to run slick fingers over Sherlock’s arsehole. Sherlock moaned as John gently pressed his index finger in; the slow burn was something he had forgotten. John carefully pulled his finger out, added more lube, and then pressed two fingers in, scissoring and twisting them as Sherlock relaxed and loosened. The brush against his prostate nearly sent Sherlock over the edge. He arched and keened, and when John brushed it again, he panted, “I need you John, now please now now oh god John please.”

John’s fingers pulled away and Sherlock fumbled for the lube, spreading some on his fingers and reaching down to stroke John, who gasped appreciatively. After a few more strokes, Sherlock rolled onto his back and pulled John on top of him. John looked down at him and gently pressed the head of his cock against Sherlock’s hole. One slow, gentle, steady push and the head of his cock was in. Sherlock gasped and John froze.

“All right?”

“More than. Please, John.”

John pushed harder and then his balls were pressed against Sherlock’s arse. They both stilled when he was all the way in, savouring the feeling. Then, John started to move, and Sherlock’s head tipped back as he allowed himself to wallow in the feeling of John in him around him surrounding him overwhelming his senses. He reached down with one shaky hand, still slick with lube, and stroked himself in time to John’s thrusts. The sparks of pleasure from John’s unerring thrusts into his prostate were hurtling him to the brink of orgasm. He didn’t want this to end.

John was breathing encouragement into his ear and nipping and kissing at his throat when Sherlock, unable to deny the orgasm screaming down his spine, let go and came with a keening wail.

John thrust once, twice, and once more as he came deep in Sherlock’s body.

Exhausted, the two men clutched each other tightly as they drifted off in the afterglow, John’s head pillowed on Sherlock’s chest. For once, Sherlock stayed in bed the whole night, memorizing John’s expressions as he dreamed, matching his breathing to John’s. He ran his hand through John’s short hair and waited for the dawn.

*

When Mycroft read Sherlock’s plaintive _help_ message, he had to force his heart back down into his chest where it belonged. He called for Anthea and had her sweep the CCTV feeds for Sherlock. _If only he would keep the GPS tracker on his phone,_ Mycroft thought bitterly as Anthea’s thumbs flew over her Blackberry, _it would make finding him so much easier._ And of course, that was the reason Sherlock always debugged his phone—he never wanted to be found.

*

 _I want to be found,_ Sherlock thought through the haze of pain. He knew that he wouldn't make it long enough to get treatment even if someone did manage to find him, he was bleeding too quickly and had been for a while now. _I don’t want to die alone. And I need to tell them to put me next to John—it’s where I belong._

 _It’s where I always belonged._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**ix.** _We are terrible for each other, and yes, we are a disaster. But tell me your heart doesn’t race for a hurricane or for a burning building. I’d rather die terrified than live forever._

Sherlock waited slightly impatiently for John to awaken. He wanted to feel John’s hands roving over his skin, he wanted to kiss John and hear him sigh, he wanted, he wanted. But at the same time, he was scared, although he’d never admit it to anyone. No one had been close to him in years. While his body ached to feel John against him every night, his brain recoiled at the thought of such intimacy. Sherlock had heard John murmur, just before he dropped into sleep, that he thought he loved Sherlock, and Sherlock wasn’t ready to hear that yet.

So he slipped out of bed and went down to the sitting room, fetching John’s laptop on the way. He threw himself onto the sofa and read John’s latest blog posts, starting with the write-up of “A Study in Pink.” Sherlock rolled his eyes at the title of the case, but read it with interest. He found himself smiling at the understated awe of his abilities that John wove into his narrative until he got near to the end of the post where John recounted a conversation they’d had the day he moved in.

It had been something John said about he wished that he was in Australia where it would be summer now, instead of this blasted cold they were dealing with in London, and Sherlock had looked up at him, puzzled.

He had deleted most of the conversation, but he remembered that he must’ve said something scornful about John’s idiocy—it was winter everywhere now, not summer, and John had gaped at him before laughing so hard he had tears streaming from his eyes. He had managed, through his giggles, to ask Sherlock if he remembered anything from his science courses—something about how the Earth goes round the Sun and the tilt of the Earth and seasons. He couldn’t quite remember.

But John had put the gist of that conversation on his blog and poked a bit of fun at Sherlock’s ignorance of things he didn’t need to know. His brain only had so much space, and he had deleted vast swaths of information to make room for those things that were important. Sherlock was surprised at how hurt he was that John would put something so personal on his blog.

When John came down to head for a short surgery shift, he bent and kissed Sherlock’s head. Sherlock didn’t acknowledge him, choosing instead to poke at John’s laptop in a futile effort to find something to entertain him.

When John came back from the surgery, Sherlock was shooting holes in the wall. Then he insulted John’s blogging, and threw himself into the sofa to sulk. He was bored. Life was boring and dull. But John was not boring. John was fascinating. And he was...leaving?

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asked as he twisted up from his sulking position.

“Out.” John said tersely. “I need some air.”

And then he was gone. Sherlock felt his heart sink. John would come back. Sherlock would point out why John was being unreasonable, and all would be right again.

Sherlock looked out the window until he could no longer see John, and after Mrs. Hudson had left him alone, turned and grinned at the smiley face he had painted on the wall. Of course John would forgive him for his insults. Of course John would forgive him for not being in bed when he woke up the morning after they’d had sex for the first time. Sherlock had warned him when they first started sleeping together that he might not stay the night. John just needed a reminder of that, and everything would sort itsel—there was a loud boom, and the windows splintered, and Sherlock was thrown to the ground.

He didn’t know it yet, but the game had begun.

*

The next morning brought Mycroft with some ridiculous murder and missing missile plans. Sherlock kept rosining his bow, hoping that if he ignored Mycroft long enough, he would give up and go away. John’s sudden, panicked shouts of “Sherlock! Sherlock!” as he ran up their stairs made Sherlock’s heart warm. He had come back.

But John’s demeanour was stiff. He was polite to Mycroft, but Sherlock could feel John’s gaze burning into him whenever Mycroft wasn’t looking at John. Sherlock felt small under that stare, like he was the one at fault, like John was hurt and disappointed because of him, because of what he’d said and done. Sherlock didn’t like that feeling, and drew his usual mask of indifference around himself to hide his true feelings of hurt and guilt.

Lestrade called with a request to come to the Yard—something had been delivered there for him. He stood up and leaned in close to John. John didn’t lean into him, and his face was closed off. “Are you coming? Lestrade wants us at Scotland Yard. Apparently, there was a delivery for me.”

“If you want me to.” Sherlock frowned at John’s hesitation, at the hint of sadness in his tone.

 _Surely he knows that I always want him with me? That I loathe every minute his job at the surgery takes away from his time with me? Surely he knows that I work better with him? Should I tell him that?_ But what came out was, “Of course. I would be lost without my blogger.” Sherlock’s smile faded as he saw the hurt look on John’s face. His own face closed off and he swirled out the door as he pulled on his coat with a flourish.

They were silent on the ride to Scotland Yard. If Lestrade noticed anything amiss between the two of them, he kept it to himself as Sherlock opened the envelope and pulled out a pink phone.

This was what he had been waiting for. The chance to play with this Moriarty. It had to be him behind this—Moriarty would be clever enough to remind him of the pink phone from the first case he and John had worked on together.

As the puzzle grew more complex and more frustrating the further he got— _why give me the shoes? What was special about them?_ \--Sherlock found himself getting more and more excited. This Moriarty had the potential to be as clever as Sherlock. He buried himself in the game, in the thrill of picking apart every detail of the shoes, studying the laces under a microscope until he finally found the answer—Botulinum toxin. Brilliant.

*

They solved two more cases in rapid succession—Moriarty was barely giving them time to breathe between the pips calling them to another case, another victim strapped to a bomb.

They were waiting at home for their next summons when the news started reporting the explosion that took out the old woman’s block of flats. John was saddened at the loss of life. Sherlock was bitter about his losing that case on a technicality beyond his control. When he said as much to John, John’s response was to ask a question Sherlock wasn’t expecting.

“So why is he doing this then, playing this game with you? Do you think he wants to be caught?”

Sherlock’s lips quirked. “I think he wants to be distracted.” He and Moriarty were more alike than Sherlock wanted to think about. He was bored, Moriarty was bored, it didn’t bode well for the public.

“Oh. You’ll be very happy together.” John stood and started towards the kitchen, shoulders practically vibrating with tension.

“Sorry, what?” Sherlock nearly spat. John, of all people should understand what torture it was to be bored. John himself had been bored upon his return to London, so why was he so upset about this?

John whipped around, furious. “There are lives at stake, Sherlock, actual human lives. Just, just so I know, do you care about that at all?”

“Will caring about them help save them?”

“Nope.”

“Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake.”

“And you find that easy, do you?”

“Yes, very. Is that news to you?”

“No, no.”

“I’ve disappointed you.”

“That’s good. That’s a good deduction, yeah.”

“Don’t make people into heroes John; heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” _But they do exist!_ his mind cried. _John is a hero—he reminded you what it’s like to care about someone else, to love someone. Isn’t that heroic?_ But it was too late to take back the words now. John’s head dropped down; he was angry then, too angry to look Sherlock in the eye. Sherlock felt something twist uncomfortably low in his gut. He had not been friendly to John since this whole game with Moriarty began. Was this what Moriarty wanted? To have John leave in disgust and move out so Moriarty could have all of his attention? _That will never happen,_ Sherlock thought fiercely. _I won’t lose John over this game. I can’t lose him._ He was surprised at the flash of panic that made his heart race when he thought of losing John.

Before John could respond, the pink phone beeped and Sherlock’s fingers were flying over his own phone. John reluctantly sat down and started flipping through the paper, ignoring Sherlock’s barb about “Not much cop, this caring lark,” when John refused to give him any important information from the newspaper.

Sherlock growled in frustration and called Lestrade. Two minutes later they were out the door, John’s nose buried in the scarf Sherlock handed him. _If he’s still finding comfort from my scent, then perhaps all is not lost,_ Sherlock thought as he endured another silent, tense cab ride to the riverbank.

*

After he had solved the fake Vermeer case, he and John were back in Baker St. bundled in their coats against the cold wind blowing in through the broken windows. John finished pecking at his laptop and stood, announcing that he was going to Sarah’s. Sherlock tracked his every move as John strode towards the door. He absentmindedly agreed to get milk and beans, hiding his smile at John’s incredulous expression. When the door slammed behind John, Sherlock pulled his laptop from where he’d hidden it next to him. He warred with himself for a moment. He was afraid that Moriarty would go after John soon, even if it was just to get the doctor out of the way, to get rid of the drain on Sherlock’s attention. But if he called Moriarty out to meet him, John would be furious that Sherlock had deliberately put himself in harm’s way without John there to protect him. He weighed his options in his mind as he opened his website. _Better to have John alive to yell at me than to wait on Moriarty’s next move,_ he thought as he typed his message.

 _Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect.  
The Pool. Midnight._

He hesitated for a fraction of a second before pressing Send. He closed the laptop and settled in to wait.

*

“Want your little getting to know you present?” Sherlock’s voice echoed around the pool as he held the USB drive aloft. “That’s what it’s all been for, isn’t it? All your little puzzles, making me dance? All to distract me from this.”

A door opened behind him. He turned to see who it was, and all of the breath left his body as his heart skipped a beat and then dropped into his stomach.

John.

It was John.

Moriarty was John.

No.

Observe. _Think!_

“Evening.” John’s voice was flat, emotionless.

 _There’s something you’re missing here, something’s not right. John never sounds like that, never. Think!_ His mind was racing too quickly to make sense of the data, the questions, the shriek of denial that was pouring through it.

“This is a turn up, isn’t it, Sherlock?”

Finally, words managed to break loose from Sherlock’s too-tight throat. “John. What the hell—?”

“Bet you never saw this coming.”

 _No, no, I didn’t,_ Sherlock thought as he walked toward John on legs that seemed far too shaky to hold him upright. _John’s not capable of this, he’s a good person, a great man, he **cares** about people, he wouldn’t be the one behind this. It can’t be true—can it?_

Then John opened the green parka and revealed the bomb vest. Sherlock’s heart nearly stopped for the second time that night, but this time, it had a sense of perverse relief along with the fear. _He’s not Moriarty!_ Sherlock nearly slumped under the weight of his relief.

“What would you like me to make him say next?” John said as he looked down at the red laser dancing on the vest he wore. “Gottle o’ gear, gottle o’ gear, gottle o’ gear.”

“Stop it.” Sherlock bit out as he advanced on John. Sherlock’s eyes took in every nuance of the scene. Moriarty was here, and he was dangerous. John was in danger. Unacceptable. He felt the reassuring weight of John’s gun at the small of his back as his mind started calculating possible escape routes, bullet trajectories, the fear behind John’s calm façade.

“Nice touch, this,” John continued in Moriarty’s voice, “the pool, where little Carl died. I stopped him, I can stop John Watson too, stop his heart.”

The little laser caressed the vest. Sherlock hated that laser with every particle of his being. “Who are you?” he challenged, daring Moriarty to step out, to face him.

“I gave you my number,” a new voice lilted. “I thought you might call.” A shadow detached itself from the wall and stepped into the light.

As soon as Sherlock saw Moriarty and pointed John’s gun at him, the only thing that mattered to him was getting John and himself out of the pool alive. He let Moriarty’s taunts flow over him, cataloguing them for later perusal. He responded on autopilot, eyes flicking to meet John’s every few seconds to reassure himself of the doctor’s well-being. John’s decision to let the snipers blow he and Moriarty up while Sherlock escaped cemented Sherlock’s resolve. He would not let a good man die for him. He knew the instant that another laser danced across his forehead because John’s face showed the doctor’s horror as he let go of Moriarty and stepped back. Sherlock’s heart inexplicably swelled at the thought that while John loved him enough to die for him, he also loved Sherlock enough not to want to see him die. Everything else ceased to matter. Moriarty could go hang—Sherlock knew that together, he and John would find the madman and take him out. They were unstoppable together. Now, if only he could find a way out of this situation.

Moriarty solved that conundrum by leaving himself with a cheery “No you won’t!” but all Sherlock could focus on was the fact that the laser had disappeared. He nearly knocked John over as he dropped to one knee and asked him in a panic, “Are you all right? _Are you all right?_ ”

“Fine, I’m fine...Sherlock!” Sherlock flung the vest as far as he could and then grabbed John and yanked him close, clinging to him for a moment before tipping John’s head back and devouring his mouth.

They broke apart just long enough for Sherlock to gasp out “I’m sorry, John, I’ve just been overwhelmed and I couldn’t _think_ for want of you and I’ve been an arse, I know and I went about everything the wrong way and I’m sorr—”

John cut him off by kissing him fiercely. “It’s fine now, Sherlock,” he gasped as he started kissing and nipping down his lover’s throat. “We’re fine, we’re fine, we’re—”

Sherlock gripped John’s arms so tightly that he knew there would be bruises there later. He wanted to insert himself into John’s skin, to never let him go again. He would do anything to keep John safe from harm, to keep him close.

Moriarty’s ringing “Sorry boys! I’m sooooo changeable!” broke them apart.

Even though Moriarty kept talking, Sherlock ignored him in favor of looking into John’s eyes and seeing the resignation, the pride, the love in them. John gave him a slight nod, and Sherlock turned to aim the gun at the abandoned bomb vest.

He pulled the trigger.

The world exploded.

*

“Have you found him yet?”

“No, sir,” Anthea answered. Her voice was tight—the only sign she would ever show of her nervousness.

Mycroft tapped his mobile against his chin for a moment before opening it and composing a text to Sherlock.

 _Where are you? Tell me where you are and I will come get you.  
MH_

If Anthea saw his fingers shaking as he pressed Send, she didn’t say a word.

*

Sherlock felt his mobile buzz, telling him he had a new message. He fumbled with his phone, but his fingers were so slick with blood and rainwater that he dropped it. He watched as his phone bounced just out of reach. He stared at it as it buzzed angrily on the concrete rooftop. He felt his eyes growing heavy. _I’ll get it in a moment,_ he thought as unconsciousness slipped over him. _I just need to rest for a moment._

 _Just a moment._

The phone buzzed again, and then fell silent.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**x.** _You make me want to pretend to be a better man._

  
When Sherlock came to, the first thing he saw was his brother’s face. He groaned softly and licked his lips.

“John?”

“Is fine. He’s been in ICU for a few days, as have you. You’re lucky to be alive, him more so.”

Sherlock processed this. “Moriarty?”

“Escaped. No body was recovered. My people are on it.”

Sherlock scoffed. Mycroft made a moue of displeasure.

“Does John know I’m awake?”

“He’s not been awake since they brought him in. They anticipate his waking in the next twenty-four hours.”

Sherlock closed his eyes. _Oh, John, forgive me for this._ “Good. I need him to know that I’ve died. And you’re going to help me with that.”

Mycroft’s eyebrows raised, a clear sign that he was startled by Sherlock’s pronouncement, but he said nothing.

“I am the only one who has any chance of catching Moriarty. And Moriarty will do anything to get to me, and that includes hurting John. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen, not to him. John and everyone else we know must believe that I died in the explosion. If John knows I’m alive, he’ll come after me, and I can’t have that. It will put him at risk. If I’m presumed to be dead, Moriarty will leave him alone. If I know John is safe, then I can focus solely on getting Moriarty. John is too great a liability for me. He, he compromises my emotions and I need to keep a clear head.”

“Sherlock—”

But now that Sherlock had started, he couldn’t stop. “He’ll move on, eventually. I’m not good enough for him. He’ll move on and forget me, and it will be worth it because he’ll be alive and happy and that’s all I want for him. I just want him safe, Mycroft. Set up a protection detail for him. Do not tell him I’m alive. Tell him whatever you need to to make him believe that I’m gone. He never needs to know if I live or die tracking Moriarty down.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said more firmly, cutting his brother off. “You cannot do this to Doctor Watson. Do you know why he was in ICU? The police found him on top of you in the rubble. He threw himself over you to protect you, to keep you safe. He loves you, Sherlock, more than his own life. He’s certainly proven that. If you are sincere in asking this of me, I will do it, and I will keep him safe, but I do this under extreme protest. Your actions may irreversibly damage him. You must be aware of that.”

“I know.” Sherlock swallowed back a lump in his throat. “Please, Mycroft, just keep him safe. I’ll contact you when I can. I need to go, now. It’s been days, and Moriarty’s trail is already cold.”

Mycroft nodded once and swept out of the room. He had to arrange for Sherlock’s transport and disappearance, but first, he had to see if Doctor Watson was awake. The conversation he needed to have with the good doctor would not be an easy one. He pulled out his mobile and dialed Anthea.

“Sir?”

“Have a sercurity team out at Baker St. Tell them to put one of Doctor Watson’s red ties on his bureau. Sweep the flat for any bugs that aren’t ours. This security detail will be permanent.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I also need you to arrange a fake death and transport for my brother.”

“Certainly, sir. It will be ready in half an hour.”

Mycroft sat patiently at Doctor Watson’s bedside. He would follow Sherlock’s instructions, but only to a point. Sherlock might not like it, but Mycroft was not about to let the only person who could keep his brother safe, happy, and loved labour for long under the illusion that Sherlock was dead. Doctor Watson would know the truth, and soon.

*

After Anthea supplied him with a new mobile, clothes, passport, cash, laptop, and other necessities, Sherlock went first to a safehouse where he gathered every last scrap of information on Moriarty Mycroft’s team had dug up since the incident at the pool. It was distressingly little, but Sherlock managed to get his first destination out of the bits of information.

He texted Mycroft.

 _Paris, tomorrow._

He hesitated for a moment, and then added,

 _Is John awake? Does he know?  
SH_

He only had to wait a few minutes for an answer.

 _Doctor Watson will be discharged in two days’ time. He knows._

 _I still do not approve of your methods._

 _MH_

Sherlock bowed his head for a moment and then rose to pack his bag. He booked tickets to Paris and then laid down to allow his nearly-healed body some more rest. For having been involved in an explosion, he had escaped with relatively little lasting injury— _that would be courtesy of John, who shielded you from the blast,_ his subconscious whispered. Sherlock stared at the bland ceiling, the hot weight of guilt burning in his chest.

*

There was an emptiness in Sherlock’s heart that was more distracting than having John next to him. Sherlock kept forgetting that John wasn’t there, so he kept turning to tell John something only to be greeted by silence. He kept putting John’s mobile number into his phone’s contacts and deleting it before he could give in to the temptation to call him. He composed dozens of texts to John, only just keeping himself from pressing Send. This was madness. He couldn’t focus without John there. Sherlock was on the verge of calling Mycroft to tell him to tell John that it was a lie, that he was alive and needed John there, when John Watson opened the door to Sherlock’s hotel room. Sherlock was stunned.

“John?”

John was across the room in three strides, pulling Sherlock out of his chair and smashing his lips to his in a messy, brutal kiss.

“You do not ever do that to me again.” John growled as he tore his mouth away from Sherlock’s. “You do not go anywhere without me—we’re better together. Understood?”

Sherlock could only breathe _yesssss_ as John attacked him again. Sherlock’s fingers scrabbled at the buttons of John’s coat as John nearly ripped the buttons off of Sherlock’s smart black suit jacket.

 _How could I have even thought I could give him up? How could I have been so blind? How could I have been so stupid to think that I could do this alone?_

John’s hands were tugging insistently on Sherlock’s shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his trousers. The feel of John’s hands on his skin was intoxicating.

Sherlock’s fingers fumbled, clumsy on the buttons of John’s shirt and cardigan.

But soon they were skin-to-skin, and Sherlock thought that nothing felt better than this. He let John take him, there in the dark, the soft blue glow of the laptop fading to black.

After, Sherlock held John as he drowsed, nose pressed into Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock gently pressed a kiss to John’s crown and murmured, “John?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

John pressed a kiss into his neck and propped himself up his hand to look Sherlock in the eye. “Forgiven. Don’t do it again. Don’t ever leave me and go where I can’t follow you.”

Sherlock nodded. “As long as you do the same.”

John smiled. “I swear I will not ever go where you can’t follow.” He leaned forward and kissed Sherlock. “Now, tell me what you’ve found so far.”

They talked late into the night, the soft sounds of Paris cocooning them as they planned their next move.

*

It took Sherlock six months to track Moriarty to Switzerland, to a small town called Meiringen. Sherlock’s sources told him that Moriarty had set up camp there, that it was where he had the largest of his crime rings outside of London. Sherlock knew that this was the place where he could end this chase, this game, once and for all. He didn’t doubt for a second that Moriarty was waiting for him there, that he had fed Sherlock this information to set up a trap and would be waiting to spring it. Sherlock’s first concern was for John’s safety. If this was where Moriarty was planning on having their final showdown, then John had to be kept safe and as uninvolved as possible. Sherlock would have it no other way.

Sherlock and John checked into a hotel in Meiringen and Sherlock settled in to wait. Two days into their stay, Sherlock received the text he had been waiting for.

Something in his expression must have given away his dread, because John frowned at him, asked, “What is it, Sherlock?” but Sherlock didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he asked John to run out and find some black shoe polish—John, bless him, went out in search of it without questioning why. As soon as John closed the door behind him, Sherlock re-opened the text he had just received.

 _Hi, sexy. :) Been dying to have a chat.  
Reichenbach Falls, 3 PM tomorrow.  
Come alone. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to your pet, now would we?  
-M x_

Sherlock bit his lip for a moment and then replied:

 _3 PM  
SH_

Sherlock went down to the concierge and left a note for John, leaving instructions that Doctor Watson would be walking towards the Falls tomorrow, and would someone come and fetch the Doctor at 2:45 the next day to tell him about the note waiting for him at the hotel? The concierge nodded and wrote down his instructions with a promise that his message would be delivered as he asked.

Mission accomplished, Sherlock went back up to the room and waited for John to come back. When he did, Sherlock took him to bed and kept him there all night, taking John several times, each growing more and more desperate until finally, after the last round, John cupped his face and asked, “What’s troubling you?”

Sherlock bit his lip.

“What is it?”

John touched his forehead to his lover’s. “There’s nothing you can’t tell me, Sherlock, you know that, right?”

Sherlock swallowed. “I know.”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing lasts forever, John. There is nothing in this world that lasts forever.” Sherlock said in a fierce whisper.

“Sherlock—” John’s face crumpled a bit, folding in on itself.

Sherlock couldn’t bear to see that look of hurt on his love’s face, and he looked down, uncharacteristically shy. He went on to say, quietly, “But if there was something that could, it would be us, John.” He met John’s eyes. “It would be us.”

“It will be us.” John said in the same fierce whisper Sherlock had used. He leaned up and kissed Sherlock deeply, one hand coming up to hold his head, fingers sliding deep into Sherlock’s curls.

When they broke apart long minutes later, Sherlock licked his lips and looked at John. His expression was one of endearing uncertainty, and John smiled and kissed him again.

“John?”

“Yes?”

“John, I....I just wanted you to know that I...” He cut himself off, heart suddenly pounding so hard that he could barely catch his breath. “I love you. Always.” He felt a great weight lift from his chest once the words were finally out. He had never truly believed in love until he met Victor, and now John. It cost him a great deal to admit to his love, to the depth of his feelings. He hadn’t liked the vulnerability, the idea of placing his heart and soul into another person’s hands. But John’s hands were broad and capable, and he trusted him with all that he had. With John, his heart was safe.

John’s lips parted in a silent gasp. He blinked, slowly, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before he finally found his voice again. He smiled at Sherlock, thumb caressing his cheek as a few silent tears slipped from John’s eyes. “I love you, Sherlock Holmes. I have never felt whole until I met you, and I cannot imagine life now without you in it.”

Sherlock’s answering grin forced his own tears to fall.

They made love for the first time as true, acknowledged lovers and slept tangled in each other, so intertwined that it was difficult to know where one ended and the other began.

*

The next day, Sherlock kept John in bed for as long as he could, until John, laughing, complained of being so sticky that if he didn’t shower he would end up permanently glued to the bed. He got up, stretched, and sent Sherlock a wink over his shoulder. “Care to join me?”

Sherlock was out of the bed in a flash.

After dressing, John suggested that they stretch their legs a bit, so they went on a walk around the town. At 2:30 in the afternoon, they passed a sign that pointed visitors towards the Falls, and with a quirked eyebrow at John, Sherlock started walking up the path. John caught up with him and took his hand, squeezing it gently.

Fifteen minutes later, someone started shouting, “Doctor Watson? Doctor Watson!” John turned, and stopped, pulling Sherlock to a halt beside him as a young boy ran up to them.

“Yes?”

“There was a message delivered for you at the hotel. They said it was urgent.”

John looked at Sherlock. “It’s probably from Mycroft—he’s the only one who would know we’re here.”

Sherlock hmmmed in agreement.

“Let’s go get it, then, shall we?”

“No, go on. I’d like to keep walking—I’ve been thinking over some of the....things we we’ve been looking at for the past few days.”

“Right.” John stood on tiptoe and kissed him fondly. “I’ll be back in a bit, yeah?”

John let go of his hand and followed the boy back to the hotel. Sherlock stood rooted to the spot, staring at John until he was long out of sight.

Sherlock turned and kept walking, shrugging off his coat and dropping it on a nearby rock as he made it to the Falls. He stood near the edge and waited.

Moriarty came up behind him, breathing “Hello, sexy” into his ear. Thus began the greatest fight in Sherlock’s life.

*

When it was over, and Moriarty had tumbled off the cliff into the raging water hundreds of meters below, Sherlock ran for the woods, knowing that he had to hide from any backup Moriarty might have brought with him in case things went wrong. But no shots were fired at him, no one chased him through the trees. In his rush to hide, Sherlock got disoriented, and had to wander through the woods, ducking at every strange noise, until finally, several hours later, he was at the edge of the village. He ducked into an unused shed to hide out until nightfall. He didn’t want to put John at risk by giving away where they were staying, if Moriarty’s goons hadn’t already figured it out. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

When he awoke hours later, it was nearly four in the morning. Sherlock sat up with a curse and ran to the hotel, scaling the drainpipe outside their window. He scrambled onto the wide ledge below their window and carefully opened it. He was halfway through the window before John woke and pointed his gun at his lover.

Sherlock froze, one of his legs over the sill. “John?”

“Sherlock?”

John put the gun down and turned on the lights as Sherlock levered himself the rest of the way in the window, brushing off his suit. He turned to look at John, only to get a solid punch to the jaw that rocked his head back.

“You bastard!” John shouted. “Do you have any idea, _any_ idea Sherlock, what I’ve been through today? What about your promise? Don’t go where I can’t follow? I thought you had, Sherlock. That’s twice, now, you’ve done this to me.” He paced the small room, turning sharply on his heel every ten steps. He stopped in the middle of the room, hands fisted in his hair. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

Sherlock stood absolutely still and silent. “John, I know I went about this the wrong way. Again. There was no other choice, John. He threatened you, and I had no choice. I will always choose to keep you safe, even if it means that you hate me for it.”

John’s head came up. “I could never hate you. But, God knows, I don’t always understand you.”

Sherlock sat on the bed, and John followed, keeping a careful few inches between them.

“What happened, Sherlock?”

Sherlock took a deep breath. “It’s over. He’s dead. We fought—he went over the Falls and nearly took me with him. I managed to keep my balance; he didn’t. I had to run into the woods to escape his backup. I got a little lost trying to make my way back here.”

John huffed a laugh. “Six months of chasing him and he dies by falling off a cliff.”

Sherlock reached over and took John’s hand. “It’s all but over, I should have said. There’s still his second-in-command out there.”

“Moran?”

“Yes. My sources say he’s back in London.”

“Home.”

“Yes.”

“Sherlock?”

“John.”

“Let’s go home.”

They smiled. Sherlock leaned in as John kissed him gently.

He stroked his fingers through John’s hair as the doctor slept. _I want to go home. I want to make love to him in our bed in our home._ Sherlock thought as he kissed the top of John’s head. _I want this game to be over so we can move on, so we can quit looking over our shoulders. Moriarty nearly ruined us with this chase. I want to forget the fights, the recriminations. Once Moran is gone, then we can move on. It will all be over soon._ John stirred, murmuring in his sleep. Sherlock smiled at him fondly. _I want this life with him, the cases, the puzzles, the late-night Chinese food. I never knew this is what I wanted, but it is._ He gave John one last kiss and let himself drift off.

They would be home tomorrow.

*

 _You said that you wouldn’t go somewhere I couldn’t follow, John you lied you left me alone and it hurts and I couldn’t breathe without you every day was a torture you lied you left and I miss you and my heart hurts and I can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t you left you left me you left me alone and you promised John you promised you promised not to leave me you promised_

Sherlock’s mobile rang.

He jerked back into consciousness with a moan, pressing one hand to his bleeding wound as he forced himself to slide over a few more inches so he could reach the mobile.

“He-He-Hello?”

“Sherlock!”

It was Mycroft.

“Where are you? Are you hurt? I need to know where you are. Tell me where you are!”

“Roof. Near the docks. Chasing Moran. He’s dead. I’m shot. Stomach.”

“Which docks, Sherlock?”

“Near—”

The line went dead. His mobile beeped. No charge left. Dead battery.

“Sherlock! Sherlock! Can you hear me?” Mycroft was answered by the disconnect tone. “Fuck!” he swore, making Anthea jump. “His mobile battery died. Did you get a trace on the call?”

“We have it narrowed down, sir, but it's still quite a large area. The call didn't last long enough for the program to get an exact location.”

“Get a medical team and the car. He’s been shot.”

“Right away, sir.”

Mycroft followed her out of his office. If she heard him force a sob back down his throat, she refrained from saying anything. She opened the car door and slid in after her boss.

London flew by them as they sped towards the area the trace led them to.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_
> 
> One of Sherlock's thoughts is a direct quote from ASW.

  


  
**xi.** _Before we met, I was so scared of dying. But if the end comes today, this will have been enough._

  
The six and a half weeks Sherlock had with John after they returned from London and before he found John bleeding to death in a dirty alley were some of the best of Sherlock’s life. They both shocked everyone with their triumphant return.

Mrs. Hudson, after John had caught her when she fainted at the sight of them on her doorstep, swatted both of them before sweeping them both up into a tight hug. “I’ve left your flat just the way you left it,” she said as she ushered them upstairs.

“Exactly as we left it?” Sherlock asked, amused.

“Well, I did throw out a few things that were starting to smell, and I came up to dust and hoover. But other than that, yes.” She unlocked their door and dropped two sets of keys back in their hands. “Your keys came in the post a few days after you left, Doctor Watson. They were from your brother, Sherlock. He was the one who paid the rent while you two were gone, you know.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” John said as Sherlock, spotting his old laptop on the coffee table, made a beeline for it and turned it on, fingers flying over the keys.

“It’s good to have you boys back,” she said John walked her to the door.

“It’s good to be back. Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, for everything.”

She smiled at him and patted his arm before she walked back downstairs.

Sherlock waited until he heard her footsteps fade before he said, “John!”

John appeared in their sitting room doorway, a look of concern on his face. “What?”

Sherlock stood and stalked across the room to stand in front of John. John’s eyes widened and his breath quickened as Sherlock approached. Sherlock stopped with less than an inch separating them. John licked his lips. “I think we should go upstairs,” Sherlock purred as he leaned down and nipped at John’s throat.

John swallowed. “Right, yes. Upstairs,” he moaned as Sherlock’s mouth trailed kisses up his throat as his hands tugged at John’s jumper, pulling it off over his head and tossing it carelessly over his shoulder.

Their clothes ended up scattered all over the flat as they tore at them in their haste to get up the stairs and into their bed. John sank into the bed with a groan “Christ, it’s good to be home and in our bed again,” as Sherlock grinned above him.

After, John carded his fingers through Sherlock’s hair as they caught their breath.

“What are we going to do about Moran?” John asked after their breaths evened.

Sherlock shrugged one shoulder. “What we always do. Track him down, chase him through London, hand him over to Lestrade.”

“You always make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy. Mycroft is sending me the information his networks have gathered here over the past six months. I just need the data, John, the rest of it falls into place after I have that.”

“And what if he gets away? What if he’s taunting you, like Moriarty did? I can’t go through another scare like the two you’ve already given me.”

“He won’t get away, he can’t taunt me, and I swore I would never leave you behind again,” Sherlock said fiercely as he tightened his arms around John enough to make the doctor grunt in protest.

They laid in silence for another hour, before making love again. As the night settled over them, Sherlock used the streetlights illuminating John’s chest and shoulder to study anew the doctor’s scar. _I will never allow anyone to take you from me,_ Sherlock thought as he traced the puckered scar lightly. _You are mine, no one else’s, and if anyone tries to hurt you again, I will kill them without thought. You would say that that’s a bit not good, but it’s you, John, and I cannot function without you now. You’ve gotten so close, far closer than I ever thought I would let anyone get, and the mere idea of you not being beside me is enough to make me go mad. I cannot imagine a life without you now, John. I don’t want to imagine it._

*

The first five and a half weeks after their return home passed in a blur of visits from Mycroft, John leaving to go to his surgery shifts, hours at Scotland Yard and at Bart’s, tracking down evidence.

Sherlock spent hours at a time over those weeks staring at documents, CCTV footage, photographs, call logs, everything in a hunt for Moran. There was one person who kept getting mentioned in call logs, a Gerald Winston. It seemed that some of Moran’s higher ups kept calling him, but Sherlock couldn’t make a connection between Winston and Moran. There wasn’t enough evidence. He pushed Winston to the back of his mind and let his brain percolate over the data he had on the man. Why was he important? Why call him over and over? Winston was, as far as his data told him, a middling businessman who had good shipping trade connections. Why him?

Six weeks after their return to London, Sherlock sat up in bed at two in the morning and shouted “Gerald Winston!”

John woke instantly, and said drolly, “I hope you weren’t shouting his name because you were dreaming of him.”

“What? No! John, he’s the link to Moran! We need to figure out his schedule—where he goes, who he sees. He’ll lead us to Moran, I know it.”

“Right, yes, fine. In the morning, Sherlock. Go back to sleep.”

Instead, Sherlock got up and went downstairs to pace., his mind turning over data, making connections. He needed to find Winston, question him. Winston was a key part in this; if he could get Winston, he would be one step closer to Moran.

*

Sherlock started trailing Winston the next morning, bullying Lestrade into getting information about Winston’s criminal history (negligible). Sherlock spent the next two days buried in a mountain of paper—all of his evidence he had collected about Moran. His homeless network was watching for Winston, and at the end of the second day, the network came through again, providing information on Winston’s haunts through the city and the days and times he visited said haunts.

Sherlock was ecstatic. He grabbed John as the doctor walked by him and yanked him down onto the sofa, kissing him soundly. “We have him John!”

John grinned down at his lover. “Time to celebrate?”

Sherlock’s answer was to attack John’s belt.

They managed to make it up the stairs to their bed, shedding clothes along the way.

After, John tucked his chin into Sherlock’s shoulder. “You know,” he murmured drowsily, “before I met you, I was so afraid that I would die and in the instant before I did, I’d see that my life hadn’t meant anything.”

Sherlock stirred and pressed a gentle kiss into John’s forehead.

“But I don’t think that will happen now. You and me, this life, this has made it worthwhile.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. His own murmur stirred John’s hair. “This will have been enough? This dangerous, insane life we lead? I’ve nearly gotten you killed more times than I can count.”

“Yes,” John said firmly, “and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

They made love again, drifting off to sleep. When John woke the next morning, Sherlock smiled down at him, trying to hide the sense of foreboding he felt in every cell. What he wanted to say was _Don’t ever leave me. My chest hurts when you’re not here, and the thought of you dying or being hurt sends me into a darker despair than I have ever thought possible or experienced. I want to open you up and crawl inside you and never leave. I want to give you a piece of myself to take with you no matter where you go. I want to carry you inside me. I want you to marry me_. But what he did say was, “I love you.”

John’s smile chased away the chill of fear that inexplicably crept down Sherlock’s spine. He leaned into John’s kiss, letting his lover’s warmth dissipate the last vestige of fear.

When they made it downstairs, Sherlock briefed John on Winston’s whereabouts, known haunts, and colleagues. “I need all the data you can get, John. I have another lead I’ll be tracking down.”

John smiled at him as he shrugged on his jacket. “I’ll keep you posted. Make sure you have your mobile on this time, Sherlock.”

Sherlock leaned forward and kissed John passionately. The fear was back; he could feel twisting in his guts. _Go with him!_ his instinct screamed. Sherlock brushed it aside. John was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, if necessary, and Sherlock had never been one for instinct. There was no logical reason John should be in danger trailing Winston—the man was not known to carry weapons and had no history of violence. But he broke the kiss to whisper, “Be careful.”

“I will.”

Sherlock kissed John again, reluctantly parting after several long minutes. He leaned his forehead into John’s. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you tonight.” John turned and shut their door behind him, the front door slamming closed a moment later.

The next time Sherlock saw John, the doctor died in his arms.

*

John kept in contact over the next seven hours, sending Sherlock texts every half-hour detailing Winston’s movements. The texts stopped at 9:30 PM.

Sherlock was on the other side of London, following a lead Mycroft’s team had dug up. He had been so wrapped up in the information he had got that he hadn’t noticed John had stopped texting him over an hour ago. He got out of the cab and pulled out his mobile as he entered their flat, absently shaking the snow from his coat. John wasn’t back from trailing Gerald Winston yet, which was unusual. Sherlock had expected him to be back by now. At the very least, John should’ve texted him with some more information by now, and he hadn’t done that either. Sherlock glanced down at his last received text. It was from John, timestamped at 9:30 PM.

 _18/02/10 9:30 PM:  
At Winston’s local. He’s with another guy, big, black hair. Seem to be settling in for a long night of drinks.  
JW_

Sherlock frowned. It was nearly 11 PM now, and John definitely should have sent an update by now. His fingers flew over his mobile as he texted John:

 _At home. Where is Winston now?  
SH_

He waited for a few minutes, knowing that John might have to wait for an opportune moment to read his text and respond. When no response came after ten minutes, Sherlock frowned and sent another text.

 _Where are you? Is everything all right?  
SH_

Still no response.

 _John?_

Still nothing.

 _JOHN._

Sherlock pulled his coat back on and raced down the stairs, arm out to hail a cab as soon as his feet hit the pavement.

*

Sherlock stared at the pub owner as he told him that two men, one matching Winston’s description, had left the pub about twenty minutes ago, followed by a man who matched John’s description.

Sherlock’s blood turned to ice as he strode from the pub. If John was not answering his phone, then something must have happened to him. John always answered his phone, and the lack of communication made dread settle in Sherlock’s stomach.

He began a methodical search of the alleys near the pub, searching for a clue to John’s whereabouts.

His heart nearly stopped when he saw a shadow move in the depths of one of the alleys. He ran into the alley, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that it was John, and if it was, that he was all right.

“John? _JOHN_!” Sherlock crashed to his knees beside his lover, brushing the snow off of his eyelids and gathering him to his chest.

John moaned and cracked his eyes open. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“John, no, no, no, no, John, don’t go. I can’t follow you, John, you have to stay.”

John managed a ghost of a smile. “It was enough, Sh’lock.” He shuddered and sighed and went absolutely still.

Sherlock’s heart dropped out of his chest as he clutched John tighter, forcing himself to breathe as he kissed John’s forehead, cheeks, lips. He brushed away his tears as he pulled out his mobile and called Lestrade.

He didn’t remember much of the next few hours. He knew Mycroft had taken him to his house, that he had spent the night John died sitting in one of Mycroft’s armchairs.

He remembered seeing Gerald Winston tied to a chair in a dank warehouse somewhere. It was the day after John died, and Sherlock was moving through the world like the air was made of treacle. Every breath seemed to choke him. Mycroft had shown him into the warehouse and left Sherlock alone with Winston.

There was a metal table with a tray of sharp instruments on it. Some of them were red with blood.

“You killed John Watson.”

Winston started. Sherlock stepped out of the shadows and stood next to the tray, his fingers brushing against one of the knives that gleamed dully in the greasy light.

“No, it wasn’t me, it was my partner, he did it, it was him not me oh god please don’t hurt me I’m sorry I’m sorry please please!”

Sherlock picked up the knife and slit Winston’s throat without a flicker of emotion on his face. He calmly placed the knife back on the tray and walked out of the warehouse. Mycroft handed him a clean handkerchief to wipe Winston’s blood off his face before opening the car door and whisking Sherlock away.

*

John’s funeral was held on Saturday, February 21. The sun was shining.

There was no formal eulogy. The minister said some empty words meant to comfort those left behind. Sherlock heard none of them. There was no comfort here. His attention was riveted on John’s still, pale face. He looked too small, too fragile in the coffin. This wasn’t John. His John had a smile that would light up a room, had a face that crinkled in delight and wrinkled in consternation. He had eyes that had never looked at Sherlock with anything but love. This wasn’t right. John shouldn’t be this still.

Sherlock managed to tamp down the scream of denial, of rage that was building in him. _I should’ve gone with him, I should’ve kept him in bed that day, I should’ve said I love you every moment of every day, I shouldn’t have wasted so much time telling him that I wanted him, that I loved him. It should be me in that coffin—he should have lived and I should have died in his place. It should’ve been me. Oh, God, John, what I going to do without you? Who will I become without you? I hate trying to put my desire into words when my body knows exactly what to say. Come home. Oh, God, please come home. Come back to me. Come back._

After John was put in the ground and the mourners had thrown their handfuls of dirt on John’s coffin, Sherlock stood staring down at the hole in the ground where his lover was buried.

Harry came up beside him and gripped his arm. Sherlock started and nearly snarled at the touch until he realized who it was.

“He loved you, you know,” Harry said, her voice thick with tears. Her eyes were the same color as John’s, and Sherlock found that he couldn’t bear to look at her.

“I know.”

“Did you love him?” Harry could barely get the words out as she cried.

Sherlock didn’t answer.

“Did you love him? Please, just tell me you knew that he loved you, that you loved him in return. You were everything to him.”

Sherlock whispered, “I loved him with my entire being. I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone, more than my own life.” He tore his arm from Harry’s grip and strode quickly towards Mycroft’s waiting car. Mycroft, wisely, said nothing, only held Sherlock tightly as he leaned into his brother’s chest and cried.

*

Sherlock made a point of visiting John’s grave every day. He spent hours telling John about all he was doing to catch Moran once and for all. The information Mycroft’s people had gotten from Winston was proving to be vital. He sat on the ground at John’s feet and played with the grass as he spoke. When his voice gave out, and only when his voice gave out, Sherlock would lay down and kiss the grass over John’s head, and then stand and brush his fingers over the inscription on John’s headstone before leaving.

 _John Hamish Watson_

 _08 September 1971-18 February 2010_

 _In Arduis Fidelis_

 _In Arduis Fidelis, John,_ Sherlock thought. _I'll be there soon._

*

Sherlock felt his extremities going cold. _Hypovolemic shock_ he thought as he started shaking violently. The puddle of his blood was growing larger by the minute. _Not long now, John,_ he thought as he slipped into unconsciousness once more.

*

“Sir! We have a lead. One of the cameras shows Sherlock entering the old industrial estate near the Surrey Commercial Wharfs,” Donovan shouted as she ran into Lestrade’s office.

“Do we have an exact warehouse?” Lestrade asked as he stood and pulled on his coat.

“No, sir.”

“What was the time on the camera?”

“It was twenty minutes ago.”

“Shit. Let’s go. Get an ambulance en route—if he’s not answering his mobile, he’s likely hurt.”

*

“We’re here, sir,” Anthea said as the car glided to a stop. “The teams are just behind us.”

Mycroft nodded and stepped out of the car, Anthea following.

He knew Sherlock would have chosen the most inaccessible place possible, just to be contrary, and so he scanned the dilapidated buildings, searching for the most likely candidate.

“Start with that one,” he told the teams as he strode off towards the furthest building.

The teams swarmed into the surrounding buildings as Mycroft waited for a report.

Two minutes later, one of the men shouted “It has to be this one—there are footprints less than an hour old here.”

Mycroft would deny it later, but he ran into the building his team indicated and, on instinct, headed up the stairs, heedless of his team’s shouts behind him.

If Sherlock was up here, he was going to need his brother, and Mycroft had every intention of being there for him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5880.html?thread=22735096#t22735096) at [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc_fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/): _Sherlock is dying and will die alone. What does he think about? What does he remember?_

  
**xii.** _There are no sweeter words than this. Nothing lasts forever._

  
After he found the rings John had bought for the two of them, Sherlock never took them off. He wore the one meant for him and tried hard not to let the stab of regret that burned in him every time he thought that John should’ve been the one to put it on him. Sherlock wore the ring he would have put on John’s finger on a chain around his neck. It was the same chain he had found in John’s box of pictures—it seemed only fitting to use it for John’s ring.

Lestrade had found him moments after he found the ring box three days after John died. Sherlock shrugged off Lestrade’s apology for interrupting a private moment and tried hard to ignore the look of pity the inspector gave him. “What is it?” he asked Lestrade as the weight of John’s ring settled against his chest.

“We were worried about you—you haven’t answered our calls or texts. We’ve got something—a murder. Odd one, this. It looks like some of the ones you said Moriarty orchestrated. Will you come?”

“I’ll be right behind. Where?”

“Brixton. Lauriston Gardens.”

“Where it all began,” Sherlock murmured.

Lestrade looked at him, puzzled.

“Nothing. Shall we?”

*

There was a man in the same building that Jennifer Wilson, who John called the Pink Lady, who was placed in exactly the same position as Jennifer Wilson had been in when he and John had examined her body on their first case together. The man was dressed in pink, down to wearing pink heels. Every detail was exactly the same as the Wilson murder—the jewelry, the clothes, the splash patterns on the back of the leg, the “Rache” scratched into the floor (although this time it was the German for revenge). There were three major differences: first, this man looked a great deal like John; second, there was a pink phone left next to the body’s left hand; third, when they turned the body over, there were three deep, post-mortem knife wounds to the chest in the exact same positions as John’s fatal wounds.

Sherlock nearly vomited up the little bit of tea that was in his stomach at the sight.

As he struggled to hold back the bile burning the back of his throat, the pink phone chimed. Sherlock crouched down and picked up the phone, reading the new text:

 _Miss your pet?  
I miss my master._

 _Catch you later.  
-SM_

“Get a trace on the phone,” Sherlock said as he stood and turned to head out the door. “Let me know when you get anything.”

“Who’s SM?” Lestrade asked. “Is it that Moran you’ve been chasing?”

“Yes. Sebastian Moran. Moriarty’s right hand man and the most dangerous man in London right now. He’s continuing the game, Lestrade.”

“And where are you going? If he’s after you, Sherlock, we need to get you some police protection.”

“Unnecessary.”

“Sherlock—”

“A protective detail will only hinder me. I don’t need it.”

Lestrade took a deep breath and played his trump card, even though he knew it made him an absolute bastard to use it. “I don’t want what happened to John to happen to you.”

Everyone in the room held their breath waiting for Sherlock’s reaction.

Sherlock spun on his heel and stalked over to Lestrade until he was crowding the inspector’s personal space. “I should’ve been the one you found there in that alley. And besides, what if I want what happened to John to happen to me? I’m the one who sent him after Winston, I’m the one who’s responsible for him dying.” Sherlock’s breaths were tightly controlled, his nostrils flaring with each angry inhale.

“Sherlock—” Lestrade’s plea was soft.

Sherlock spun back around and left the room in three long, angry strides.

*

Over the next week, Sherlock grew more and more impatient with the lack of clues, the essential data he needed to find Moran and end this game. The text from Moran couldn’t be traced, the body yielded absolutely no evidence whatsoever. There was nothing for him to go on, and it was maddening. Sherlock hated waiting around for evidence, for the next stage of the game.

He wasn’t surprised when Lestrade rang him at the end of the week, telling him to come to the financial district.

When he arrived at the bank Lestrade had told him about, there was a woman dressed in a nearly identical suit as Eddie van Coon lying dead in her office. She had been found there that morning by the cleaning staff. There was golden yellow spray paint on one wall of her office: the Chinese symbols were familiar— _Deadman_. She had a fake jade pin placed in her hand. There was a muddy partial bootprint next to her head. Sherlock scraped some of the mud into an evidence bag and pocketed it.

The pink phone that Sherlock had carried with him everywhere for the past week chimed.

 _Figured it out yet? :)_

 _-SM_

“I need every pool in the city shut down,” Sherlock said.

“Done,” Lestrade said.

The phone chimed again as Sherlock hailed a cab to head to Bart’s with the mud sample.

 _Good. He said you would get it eventually.  
Midnight tonight._

 _Come alone._

 _-SM_

The mud, after he analysed it, told him which pool to go to.

*

Ten minutes before midnight, and Sherlock was three storeys up, peering through the large skylight on the roof at the appointed pool. He could see the innocuous green parka on the pool tile from where he stood. He heard a soft click off to his right. It was the sound of a sniper rifle being assembled. He ran, fleet footed, toward the source of the click. He surprised Moran, who abandoned the rifle and ran across the roof, leaping to the next roof. Sherlock followed him easily. They ran across a few more roofs before Moran got the better of him. The last gap was large, and Sherlock hesitated for a moment, backing up to run at the edge again. That moment was all Moran needed—he drew a handgun and fired, missing Sherlock’s head by inches just as Sherlock was starting his leap. Sherlock stumbled and fell from three storeys up, smacking his head on the pavement below.

*

He woke up from his coma thirteen days later. The scrapes on his back were healing nicely, the doctors said, and the cast on his broken right leg would be removed in four more weeks.

It took him a week after waking up from his coma to convince the doctors and Mycroft to release him from hospital. He spun the ring on his finger constantly in his agitation, in his need to be done with this so he could be with John again. He knew the only reason he had woken from his coma was because Moran was not yet dead—he couldn’t give up until the bastard was gone.

The first thing he did upon his release was visit John. He carefully lowered himself to the ground at John’s feet and apologised to him for not visiting for the past twenty days. It seemed hard to believe that John had been gone for two and a half months—the strangling grip of grief that stole his breath every time he remembered that John wasn’t there next to him anymore made it feel like John had just died yesterday.

“I saw you, when I was unconscious,” Sherlock admitted to John’s headstone. “We were in Baker Street, in our bed, naked, making love. I never wanted it to end. I never wanted to wake up.” One tear splashed on his trousers, and it was quickly followed by another, then another and another and another until he was gasping for breath and the wet patch on his trousers was cold and clammy.

His dreams in that coma had felt so real. He could feel the rough scratch of John’s stubble, the softness of the hair at the nape of his neck. He could taste his skin, breathe in the smell of his shampoo, and underneath that, the spicy-sweet smell that was all _John_. He could feel John’s lips on his skin, his strong, capable hands brushing down his sides to stroke his erection. Sherlock could feel John’s fingers, now slick with lube, trace careful circles around his anus before slipping inside and spreading him open. He could feel John take his legs and wrap them firmly around his hips before sliding his cock in one smooth stroke. He could feel the sweat gathering under his fingertips at the nape of John’s neck, could taste the salt of his skin as he kissed up John’s neck and captured his lips, pressing his tongue into John’s mouth. He could hear his own cry and felt the hot rush of his orgasm as he came over his belly. He felt John shudder and then come deep inside him.

It had all been so real—John had felt so alive above him, under him, surrounding him, that waking up to the cold reality of a John-less existence was unbearable. He wanted to float forever in that dream world where he had John beside him, always.

*

In the three weeks that it took for Sherlock’s broken leg to fully heal, the pink phone didn’t go off once. There were no more dead bodies (at least, not ones left by Moran). There were no traces of the man—it was as if he had vanished into thin air. Even Mycroft’s people couldn’t get a trace on him. When Lestrade would call Sherlock out to cases, Sherlock would maneuver himself around the crime scene as if he wasn’t encumbered by crutches, berating the stupidity of the Yard for not seeing the obvious. To anyone who didn’t know him well, which was everyone but John and Mycroft, Sherlock seemed to back to his normal acerbic self.

If John had been there, he would have known that nothing could have been further from the truth.

*

Two days after his cast had been removed, the pink phone beeped.

 _Surrey Commercial Wharfs.  
4 PM today._

 _Come alone.  
-SM_

Sherlock looked at his watch. 1:30 PM. He sat down and composed two emails to be sent out at 6 PM. One went to Lestrade and was a simple apology and the location of the meeting place Moran had set. The other was to Mycroft. When he was done, he shut his laptop, pulled on his coat and opened the box on the table that held John’s gun. He slipped it into his waistband and then went to hail a cab. He had enough time to visit John before his appointment with Moran.

Sherlock sank down onto the grass at John’s feet for the last time. He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush.

“I think I’ll be seeing you today, John. Moran is calling me out to the Wharfs. I have your gun. I have every intention of killing him, and then I can come find you.”

He stopped, reaching down to pluck a piece of grass, worrying it in his fingers.

“I know that you would say that I should go on living, that I should think of the people left behind. I know that you would say my intentions are not good, and more than just a bit not good. But I can’t _breathe_ without you, John. You took my life and made it worth living. You made me stop, slow down and appreciate life, even if it seemed like I didn’t. My world had color in it, when you were with me, and now, it’s all gone black and white. You were the reason I cared about people. You changed me, John, you made me a better person. I never thanked you for that.

I wanted to carry a piece of you with me, always. I wanted you to carry a piece of me, always. I wanted to be yours, and I wanted you to be mine. I never thought that you knew what I wanted. But when I found the rings you bought, I knew you did. I would’ve said yes, John. I hope you knew that. I would have said yes yes yes a thousand times yes and I would’ve shouted it off our rooftop. I love you. I miss you so much—I still think I can hear your footsteps in the flat, or your voice murmuring “I love you” into my ear just before I fall asleep. Sometimes, I even think I feel you kiss my cheek as I drop off. Maybe I was feeling and hearing these things. I like to think they were real.”

He laid facedown on the grass, stretching himself out so that he covered John’s body. He brushed his fingers against the base of John’s headstone and let himself imagine how their life should have been.

 _Laughing together on their wedding day, John looking sharply handsome in his dress uniform; the gold rings on their fingers glinting in the sun._

 _Chasing down countless criminals through London, the city a blur as they ran through it._

 _John going slowly greyer._

 _Sherlock’s laugh lines growing deeper._

 _Falling into bed together, pulling at each other’s clothes, kissing each other deeply._

 _John’s hands running through his hair as they sat on the couch watching one of John’s inane films._

 _Sherlock playing John’s favourite Mendelssohn piece as the doctor dozed by the fire._

 _Their cottage in Kent, where Sherlock kept bees and John wrote his memoirs._

 _Holding John’s hand as he passed peacefully._

 _Lying down next to his husband and letting himself follow._

Sherlock remembered his words to John the night before Moriarty died:

 _“Nothing lasts forever, John. There is nothing in this world that lasts forever. But if there was something that could, it would be us, John. It would be us.”_

 _God, how I wish that was true,_ Sherlock thought as he roused himself from his thoughts, wiping away the tears still streaming down his face. He glanced at his watch. It was time to go.

He kissed the grass beneath him. “I love you. It was always you, John. Always.” He stood and brushed his fingers along John’s name one last time before squaring his shoulders and walking away.

  
*

The wind whipped Sherlock’s hair into a frenzy and played with the ends of his scarf. He held the gun in one hand as he carefully scanned the empty warehouses at the docks. He saw the faintest set of footprints heading towards the tallest warehouse tucked away in the furthest corner of the industrial estate. He followed their trail, eyes constantly scanning his surroundings.

He followed the prints into the warehouse and up the stairs to the roof. He saw Moran across the roof, standing near the edge. The man had a handgun trained on him. There were no buildings close enough for him to jump to. Moran was trapped by his own design. Sherlock raised John’s gun as he approached.

“Moran.”

“Holmes.”

“You must’ve lost your touch—giving me the location where you’d be. I’d have thought you would have let me figure it out.”

“You’re the one who has lost your touch, Holmes. Ever since you lost your pet, you’ve just not been as much fun to play with.”

Sherlock didn’t even think about it—he pulled the trigger just as Moran did. Moran fell like a sack of bricks, a neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

Fire ripped through Sherlock’s stomach. He dropped the gun and ripped open his coat and suit jacket and looked down at himself. Blood was soaking his shirt, turning it crimson.

Sherlock smiled.

*

“Sherlock! SHERLOCK!” Mycroft yelled. He ran to his brother’s side and dropped to his knees, shaking Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock’s blood was soaking through the knees of Mycroft’s trousers, and he was nearly white with blood loss. His lips had a bluish tinge to them. Sherlock moaned and managed to open his eyes.

“Mycroft?”

“I’m here, Sherlock.” Mycroft heard the team charge up the stairs behind him. There were sirens in the distance—the Yard was coming. Deep in his heart, Mycroft knew that Sherlock had lost too much blood, that his brother’s death was mere moments away. He found himself speechless as his throat closed up and tears threatened to spill.

“Put me next to John,” Sherlock managed to whisper.

Mycroft could only nod.

“’M sorry, Mycroft.”

“What for?”

“I promised not to do anything that would make you have to save me.”

Mycroft suddenly remembered the incident at the pond where he had to rescue his five-year-old brother from drowning and the promise he had extracted from the boy after he had been saved: _“I will always save you, if it is possible for me to do so, Sherlock, I promise. But you need to promise me that you will try your best not to do anything that will require you to be saved—I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”_

Sherlock’s eyes closed. Mycroft smoothed the hair from his brow and leaned down to press a kiss to Sherlock’s forehead. “Go to John, Sherlock. Love him with all your heart.”

Sherlock gave one last sigh and stilled.

He was gone.

*

Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes and took John Watson’s hand.

\--Fin--


End file.
